


Yevgeny

by Romiress



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: But deviates from canon, HYDRA does awful things, Lots of horrible stuff in the past, M/M, Mature tag is for content, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Not Canon Compliant, OC is a Steve Clone, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Torture, Primarily a recovery fic, Racist Language near fic start, Set before Age of Ultron, Tags May Change, not really for porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:23:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 65
Words: 62,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Set after the fall of HYDRA. Yevgeny, the last surviving clone of Steve Rogers goes rogue, only to be captured by the Avengers.Primarily a recovery fic, focusing on a HYDRA clone of Steve Rogers coming to terms with just what he is. Heavily involves Winter Soldier recovery. Please be aware of the tags, because HYDRA doesn't make for happy childhoods.OC belongs to HeadofPorridge and Karaii, with art by Karaii.





	1. HYDRA File #918382

 

 **Designation:** 32557038-6

 **Assignment:** Primary handler for Winter Soldier project

* * *

[Project file attached]

 **Project ID:** 918382

 **Project Code:** Spring Thaw

 **Project Summary:** The Winter Soldier project continues to prove difficult to handle. Years of testing and resets have created an unstable base. The Winter Soldier is prone to fits and confusion when first unfrozen, or when remaining out of cryogenic freezing for extended periods of time. Resetting each time the Winter Soldier acts out will only worsen the subject’s performance, requiring an alternative method for control.

Spring Thaw is built on the basis of observations made in 1952. The Winter Soldier reacts more favorably when the handler giving his instructions has some amount of physical similarity to Captain Steve Rogers (see FILE 670107), with blond hair and blue eyes being the most prominent. Custom produced handlers cloned from the late Captain’s DNA were determined to be the best course of action. The clones could be raised within HYDRA to exemplify HYDRA’s ideals, and allow for a greater degree of control over the Winter Soldier than previously possible.

The issues with Spring Thaw became obvious immediately after the birth of the clones. The clone’s progenitor was famed for his severe and persistent health problems, and the clones inherited their progenitor’s health.

Of the ten clones, two were stillborn, and a third died shortly after.

From their birth it became obvious that the clones would not be viable long term. Even the healthiest of the clones was extremely sickly, and the decision was made to attempt to once more recreate the super soldier serum in order to maintain the project. Since the clones shared a genetic makeup with the only successful recipient, the project was allowed to continue despite previous failures at reproducing the serum.

The clones entered training at age three. Two clones died shortly after, their hearts unable to handle the stress of physical exertion. As the recreation of the serum advanced, the decision was made that only two clones would be required, with the weakest of the remaining three being pruned out to ensure the healthiest possible subject.

Attachment to subjects was strongly discouraged, but the soldiers exposed to the clones showed a strong favoritism towards 32557038-1, nicknamed ‘Touzik’ (little ace). While most of the clones remain standoffish,  32557038-1 remains friendly towards the men.

32557038-3 showed excellent marksmanship during this period, but became ill. When it became apparent that the subject would not recover to full health, it was euthanized.

At age 7, 32557038-5 was involved in a training accident and died.

At age 8, the serum was completed, and the decision made to execute the lowest performing clone, 32557038-7. Concerns were expressed over  32557038-6′s persistent anger issues, but repeated conditioning ensured they remained at manageable levels and did not interfere with training.

32557038-1 and 32557038-6 were decided as the two recipients of the serum, and received numerous surgeries to improve their overall health, repairing their hearts and correcting spinal curvature.

Unfortunately, 32557038-1 displayed an unexpected rebellious streak, no doubt spurred on by the soldier’s favoritism. 32557038-1 declared himself a pacifist, and refused further training.

32557038-1′s execution performed in front of the soldiers by 32557038-6, in hopes that watching the final subject kill the favorite would turn the soldiers against them. Favoritism only breeds rebellion, and further kindness was to be avoided at all costs.

The last surviving subject, 32557038-6, was dosed with the serum and provided the name Yevgeny. The serum proved effective in offsetting the progenitor’s many health issues, but provided only a moderate boost over the average human’s capabilities. Yevgeny’s strength, stamina, agility, and healing proved to be improved, but the serum was nowhere close to the strength of the original.

Yevgeny was formally introduced to the Winter Soldier, and the project declared a success.

While the Winter Soldier lacked the capacity to maintain memories between wipes, he showed some degree of recognition of Yevgeny, no doubt reacting to the similarities to the clone’s progenitor. Yevgeny became the Winter Soldier’s primary handler, preparing him for orders before stepping back to allow a senior HYDRA agent to provide them.

While the Winter Soldier remained physically incapable of emotionally bonding with Yevgeny, the possibility existed that the reverse would happen, and steps taken to ensure that it would not. The Winter Soldier was used as a means of punishment, but proved unwilling to physically torture Yevgeny, even under orders. requiring multiple extra wipes.

On the recommendation of Sgt. Degtyarev, the Winter Soldier was prompted to sexually assault Yevgeny, and proved willing to comply. Both physically painful and degrading, Yevgeny’s punishments were carried out in front of witnesses, ensuring that the clone would find no enjoyment in it. The soldiers strong dislike for Yevgeny for his part in killing 32557038-1 only worsened the experience.

After two years of training, Yevgeny was frozen along with the Winter Soldier to prepare for missions.

The Winter Soldier proved significantly more receptive to orders given by Yevgeny, and having a mobile handler who could assist on missions allowed for much more prolonged ones, without the concern that the Winter Soldier would become overly erratic after too long between wipes. The Winter Soldier’s maximum active period was raised from 36 hours to 120 hours during this time.

Yevgeny primarily provided long ranged support assistance with a high powered rifle, his physical size making him unfit for close range combat except when absolutely necessary. In order to facilitate the Winter Soldier’s recognition, Yevgeny’s combat gear was customized with a detachable facemask that would allow him to expose his full face, rather than just his eyes.

Yevgeny proved more resilient to repeated freezings than the Winter Soldier, and remained active more consistently, frequently being sent on solo missions. His loyalty remained absolute, although his anger issues continued to be an issue.

In 1987, when Yevgeny was approximately 16, an incident occurred which necessitated the removal of his vocal cords. The Winter Soldier had previously been trained to both read lips and hand signals, and the loss of Yevgeny’s ability to talk was considered to be an acceptable loss. In order to further accommodate the loss, Yevgeny’s suit was refitted with bright red fingers to make signaling more obvious.

 In 1991, after the fall of the soviet union, both the Winter Soldier and Yevgeny were relocated to America, requiring Yevgeny be taught English in order to function better. 

Significant advances in technology have for the most part rendered Yevgeny’s advantages as a sniper obsolete. While extremely gifted, he is only on level with an excellent HYDRA trained sniper, and I’m recommending that he instead be assigned purely to the handling of the Winter Soldier. Solo missions only increase the likelihood that Yevgeny will be captured or killed, and the Winter Soldier’s continuing mental decline mean that if Yevgeny is killed, the Winter Soldier might fall completely out of HYDRA control.

[REASSIGNMENT ACCEPTED 08/27/1998]

* * *

**Current Status:**

**Designation:** 32557038-0

 **** **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 0, stillborn.

 **Designation:** 32557038-1

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 8, executed by 32557038-6. Strong favorite of the soldiers, nicknamed Touzik.

 **Designation:** 32557038-2

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 4, heart failure during training.

 **Designation:** 32557038-3

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 7, euthanized after prolonged illness.

 **Designation:** 32557038-4

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 0, stillborn.

 **Designation:** 32557038-5

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 7, training accident.

 **Designation:** 32557038-6

 **Assignment:** Primary handler for Winter Soldier project

 **Notes:** Persistent anger issues since childhood. Last remaining subject of project Spring Thaw.

 **Designation:** 32557038-7

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 8, euthanized as lowest performing surviving clone.

 **Designation:** 32557038-8

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 1, sudden illness.

 **Designation:** 32557038-9

 **Assignment:** DECEASED

 **Notes:** Died age 5, heart failure during training.


	2. Chapter 2

He vanishes into the city. The city is not his home, nor is it familiar to him, but it is a city, and all cities are the same in the end. No matter what country, all cities have a rotten center.

He finds the center easily, a dingy old public bathroom in a run down park, and uses it to clean away the blood, wiping down the knife he’s taken. It’s ill-suited for murder, but it does better than his hands, and it’s good to have. He’s small, and he needs to take his advantages where he can get them.

It takes him less than ten minutes to find a man cruising for sex, and five to lure him out of sight. The man doesn’t even get a chance to scream before he’s dead, bleeding out under the bushes.

He takes the man’s wallet.

Thirty minutes later he’s found a convenience store using dummy cameras, and he uses the man’s credit card to buy everything he might need.

He’s certain that the shopkeeper will be able to identify him later, but without a camera, the connections won’t be drawn until he’s long gone. Even if they’ve found the second body--and they very well might have--the first body likely won’t be found for days.

As long as the first body stays out of sight, he can still get away.

Three hours after killing the man in the park, he’s trimmed his hair down to a stubble and found himself a thick hoodie to wear. It hides his scars, if not the bags under his eyes, and does a good enough job of making him look younger than he is.

He thinks he could pass for sixteen. He thinks he’s nineteen, but he can’t be sure.

It isn’t until he’s on the train out of town that he has time to slow down, time to process beyond the immediate future. He isn’t sure there is one. He’s committed the worst crime possible, raising his hand against one of the commanders.

The fact that the commander is now dead is a secondary concern.

He gets off at the first stop, even though his ticket should take him three more. He walks to a station on a different line, and gets on without a ticket.

He takes inventory, but it doesn’t take long. He has his knife. He has his clothes. He has thirty seven dollars in cash.

Everything else is sitting at the bottom of a trash can back in the city.

He should be completely and irrevocably fucked, but he was made from tougher stuff. He has no intention of lying down to die.

But he needs a plan.


	3. Chapter 3

Someone is watching him. His instincts are too good to miss it, and as he drops the money on the counter to get his coffee he discretely glances behind him.

No one stands up. It’s too busy, and he regrets coming in at all. He should have stayed outside. He should have kept his money. If he gets dragged back to HYDRA because he decided to splurge on a coffee he’ll never forgive himself.

He takes his coffee and ducks out of the shop, heading down the street. He keeps a nice even pace, checking behind him by looking in shop windows to check his reflection.

Someone is definitely following him.

He thumbs the switchblade in his pocket as he takes a shortcut, cutting into Russian territory. He needs allies. If he doesn’t have allies, he’ll give too much away.

He’s lucky.

Alex and Nikita are lurking in the next alley he turns to, and he stares at them with wide, pleading eyes. It’s enough to catch their attention, and Nikita turns, squinting at the man behind him who has just turned the corner.

It isn’t discreet, but it’ll have to do.

“Someone bothering you, _synok_?” Nikita asks, and he turns to face the man.

Unfamiliar.

Not HYDRA.

Suddenly he feels silly. The man following him looks completely normal, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket. He looks like any man on the street, and not at all like what Yevgeny has come to expect from a soldier.

But even still, the man was following him.

The man bristles, stopping short as he sizes up the two man in a very familiar motion. Everything about it screams _soldier_ to Yevgeny, and his instincts double down on themselves.

He keeps himself behind Alex and Nikita. If a fight starts, they’re his fodder.

The man doesn’t start a fight though. He smiles pleasantly, as if he simply got lost and wasn’t following a stranger down an alley.

“Sorry, don’t mind me. Honestly, thought your friend there was the one who stole my wallet the other day, but I think I was mistaken.”

He hasn’t stolen a wallet in more than a year, but that doesn’t mean the man is necessarily lying. He simply fixes the man with a firm stare, watching to see what he’ll do.

Nikita doesn’t take it well, taking a firm step forward as he snarls with anger.

“A nigger like you is going to accuse _my_ frien-” He starts, only to have Alex elbow him hard in the side.

“Shut the fuck up, now you’re just trying to start trouble,” Nikita snaps, before turning back to the man. “Well, he’s not, so fuck off.”

The man gives a little nod and turns, leaving the alley as quickly as he came.

Nikita is still rubbing at his side and glaring at Alex, but Alex’s already moved on, turning back to Yevgeny, a hard look on his face.

“Did you steal his wallet?”

Yevgeny shakes his head.

Alex nods and pats him on the shoulder, and Yevgeny is so wound up it takes all his control not to stab him on the hand out of pure instinct.

“Let's get going then, and hope he doesn’t turn up again.”


	4. Chapter 4

Sam’s having a hard time believing it, but he’s having an even harder time _not_ believing it.

There’s way, way too much similarity.

So the first thing he does is head straight to Avengers headquarters.

He has a pass, and they let him in.

Letting him in doesn’t mean that Steve is home though, and he’s forced to wait around with his thumb up his ass for him to get back.

Three hours later he’s fallen asleep on the couch, and Steve’s suddenly waking him up.

“They called me back for this, so I hope it’s good,” Steve says, not bothering with a greeting. Apparently all of Sam’s talk about things being really, _really_ important got through.

Sam lets out a groan as he rubs at his side, sitting upright. Bad plan to fall asleep on the couch like that.

“This is going to sound really rude, but... have you _ever_ , under any circumstances, had sex with a woman?”

Steve’s eyebrows seem to do a little flip on his face they shoot up so high, and Steve straightens up, his face tinging red as he clears his throat.

“Is this _relevant_ , or did you call me back to tell me I need to, as Clint put it, ‘get laid’?”

Sam’s having a hard time believing that it _is_ relevant, but how the hell could it _not_ be?

“I swear it is, so you’re going to have to answer.”

Steve shifts a bit, obviously uncomfortable, and then lets out a little sigh.

“No,” he finally manages.

Sam doesn’t know if that’s better or worse.

“Four hours ago I was getting coffee downtown in a little hole in the wall. I was on the wrong side of town and absolutely desperate for something to drink. And you--definitely you--were in line with me.”

Steve stares at him, obviously confused.

“I was in San Diego.”

“Yeah, I’m aware, they told me. But it was still you. You like... ten years younger. Physically, I mean. Skinny. But it was you. Same face. Same eyes. No cameras in that part of town, but I swear to you, that was _definitely_ you.”

Steve is obviously uncomfortable, but Sam’s just as bad. No matter what it means, it’s bad. There shouldn’t be another Steve running around. The fact that there is spells trouble.

Steve starts to pace, chewing on his lip as he does, and Sam doesn’t think he’s seen him look so awful since the last time he saw Barnes.

“I’m going to back and try and find him again. I know the area he’s in. He was hanging out with some Russian guys--maybe the mafia, they’re active in that area. If I can find him and bring him in, we’ll figure it out.”

“I should be the one to go.”

Sam lets out a little snort.

“Bringing you into that part of town is asking for trouble. Everyone’s going to know who you are. Meanwhile, no one knows who I am, so I can just go walking without being bothered.”

Steve obviously doesn’t like it, but Sam isn’t leaving room for argument.


	5. Chapter 5

He doesn’t see the man again, even though he’s looking. He keeps an eye out, and he knows that Alex and Nikita are too.

Family sticks together, and even if they aren’t _his_ family, they think of him as theirs.

Sometimes it pays to be small.

Business continues almost as usual, but even so he’s still nervous. Just because he didn’t recognize the man doesn’t mean he’s not HYDRA. If HYDRA’s found him, it’s almost certainly too late. Even after a year on the run, his assets are few and far between. He has the Russian gang that’s taken him in. He has some money. He has a place to sleep.

But if he has to flee across country again, it’ll mean starting over, and not so many places have a large enough Russian population that he'll be able to function normally.

Even fewer will have a large enough Russian population willing to take in a mute boy without question.

He doesn’t bother feigning surprise when he suddenly finds the man literally dropping from the sky.

A quick glance up confirms that there’s a fire escape (at least he didn’t drop from the roof, which would have all but _confirmed_ that he was with HYDRA), but nothing else.

The man has no backup, and Yevgeny has no one watching.

He pulls out his knife.

The man immediately raises his hands, showing his palms rather than showing fists.

“Woah there, I’m no-”

He doesn’t get a chance to finish the sentence before Yevgeny lunges.

He feels both vindicated and infuriated that he was right--the man is definitely a soldier. He nimbly jumps backwards, swatting Yevgeny’s knife hand down to ruin his momentum.

Even more infuriatingly, the man somehow continues to talk, even as he scrambles backwards.

“Not here to fight. Just here to talk. I think you - I think we need to have a talk,” the man continues, dodging Yevgeny’s next slice with a practiced ease.

In his prime, Yevgeny thinks he’d have been able to take him. But he only has his switchblade, and he’s spent almost a year with almost no need to fight. He’s lost weight, and his already awful health isn’t doing him any favors.

He isn’t going to stop though.

He’s mastered enough English to know what the man is saying, but he has no intention of talking, even if he could. He drops the knife, and the man’s eyes follow it as he does.

A ruse. While the man watches the knife, Yevgeny elbows him in the side before headbutting him in the nose.

The man’s face becomes a fountain of blood, and Yevgeny’s sure that his face is covered in it. He can’t stop though, and he lunges in again.

He misses, the man somehow managing to get back in time.

“Well, you asked for it.”

Yevgeny doesn’t even see it coming. The man’s fist is suddenly in his stomach, and he chokes, falling to his knees. He can’t keep it down, and vomits onto the pavement, eyes watering as he clutches at his gut.

His trainers would be horrified. Anyone who knew him would be horrified. He’s supposed to be the best, the very last one, but now he’s fallen to a random soldier.

He hates himself.

“Sorry,” the man says, letting out a little sigh as he reaches down, grabbing Yevgeny’s shoulder as he pulls him upright. “But I’m going to need you to come with me.”

Being knocked out would be merciful, and he doesn’t get that. Instead he finds himself handcuffed and hauled out of the alley, shoved into the back seat of a parked car.

“Great, now I feel like a kidnapper,” the man mumbles under his breath, digging through a bag in the passenger seat.

When he turns around with an auto-injector in his hand, Yevgeny panics. He’s not going back. He’s not going back ever again. He’d chew through the flesh of his wrist before he goes back, and he deftly flips his arms over the top of his head to do just that as the man lunges for him.

He bites the man’s arm, but he isn’t strong enough to fight him off, and the autoinjector goes off against his skin.

Yevgeny falls asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve stares at the body in front of him, his stomach doing flips.

Even though he trusts Sam--and he does trust Sam, would entrust his _life_ with him--he was still entirely convinced the man was mistaken until he walked into Avengers Tower with a limp body tucked under his arm.

For all of Sam’s complaints about feeling like a kidnapper, his victim looks unharmed beyond some gashes at his wrists where he struggled against the cuffs.

“Why do you even _have_ handcuffs?” Steve asks, staring down at them. Sam’s dropped the boy on, of all places, a couch. A couch on a secure floor, but still a couch.

“A friend, don’t ask,” Sam says, wincing as he sprays antiseptic onto the bite on his arm.

Steve squats down, reaching up to pull the hair up, clear of the boys eyes.

“He’s probably older,” Steve mumbles, earning a vaguely interested ‘hm?’ from Sam as he wraps the bite.

“I looked younger. I was eighteen and they thought I was fifteen, I had to prove my age when I tried to sign up for the army. He’s probably older than he looks. If he is me.”

“If he is you?” Sam repeats with a knowing look. “He’s you with some extra bags under his eyes.”

Steve can’t deny it. His own mother would mistake the boy on the couch for him without even blinking.

“The real question,” Sam says, “is when we’re going to let other people in on this. Because this is trouble and we both know it.”

“When we know for sure,” Steve replies, still staring down at the boy. He’s sleeping peacefully, but he can’t tell how much of that is his demeanor, and how much of that is the drug in his system. “I don’t want to tell anyone until we know for sure if he’s a-”

He cuts himself off, and Sam lets out a snort.

“You can say it, it’s just the two of us.”

There’s a long silence before Steve manages to get himself to say it out loud. “A clone.”

Because that’s what the guy is. He doesn’t have a son, and even if he did the similarity is too clear.

“Bruce would be able to verify if he’s a clone,” Sam adds. “And Nat would be the one to know, if anyone.”

“We aren’t telling anyone until we know for sure. When’s he supposed to wake up?”

Sam shrugs.

“Bruce didn’t specify. Who knows? Could be now, could be hours from now. Does it really matter? What could he possibly say that could change the obvious? He’s a clone. You have a clone running around. At least one. Maybe more.”

Steve feels sick at the thought of there being _more_.

“We can check for ourselves,” Steve mutters. “If he’s me--my clone--he’ll have all the same issues I have. I had a curved spine, so if he has it, it’ll be obvious.”

He’s careful as anything as he bends over, hiking up the back of the kids shirt to see. He can see the first peak of a scar--and then suddenly there’s an elbow in his face.

Steve sees stars, but he catches himself before he hits the ground.

He can hear Sam’s ‘Woah!’, and even though the kid is handcuffed--he didn’t just somehow magically get those off--he’s practically a whirlwind of motion. He manages to kick Sam in the ankle before he’s up, sprinting towards the door.

Steve catches him before he makes it to the doorway, tackling him to the ground. He goes down so hard Steve feels like he should be able to hear the crunch, and there’s no way he hasn’t knocked the breath right out of the kid.

It turns out he hasn’t, because he very nearly takes an elbow to the chin.

But he has at least a hundred pounds on the kid, nevermind a few inches. Pulling him into a chokehold takes effort, but once he’s there, there’s no way out.

He doesn’t _want_ the kid unconscious, but he also doesn’t want anyone getting hurt more than they already are, and while the kid keeps elbowing him in the gut, it takes all his effort to hold it.

Finally, the kid goes limp, and Steve slowly eases off his grip.

“Well, that went well,” Sam says bitterly.


	7. Chapter 7

Yevgeny wakes in a bed. A bed shouldn’t be an alarming thing, but it is. He’s spent the last year sleeping on the floor, or a couch if he’s lucky, and the last time he was in a bed wasn’t pleasant.

The room is dead silent, and after waiting almost five minutes to confirm there’s no one else, he cracks an eye open and sits up.

It’s a prison, which he feared, but everything is clean and white. It isn’t like the prison HYDRA uses, the ones he’s so familiar with.

Not being in HYDRA’s hands should be a blessing. The fact that he’s ended up in the enemy's hands is not.

Because he knows. As much as he wants to pretend otherwise, the man who touched his back--the man who choked him out--is his original.

His supposedly dead original.

The idea makes Yevgeny want to be sick, but there’s nothing left for him to throw up. He’s hungry, but at the very least he’s not sore, his pathetic healing factor having eased away all the bumps and bruises.

He’s also not handcuffed, a fact he finds surprising.

He shoves himself out of bed to find that he’s been stripped down and redressed in immaculate hospital scrubs. His knife, of course, is gone, and he spends the next ten minutes searching every inch of the room.

There’s nothing to find. The walls are bare. The bed is simple and bolted down. The vent is barely the size of his hand and doesn’t even _have_ bolts. There’s nothing else in the room but the door, which doesn’t even have a handle on his side.

He’s trapped.

The urge to gnaw off his own arm is there, but he pushes it away. He isn’t beaten. Not yet. This isn’t HYDRA. This is the enemy, and he knows what to do with the enemy.

He lies down on the floor and starts to do pushups, working off the nervous energy. He’s in the middle of his third set when an unseen intercom clicks on.

“Sorry about the rough treatment.”

The voice is _his_ voice, only older, and there’s no question in his mind who’s talking. He doesn’t stop, or even acknowledge the voice, continuing his exercise instead.

“Listen, we just want to talk.”

The voice keeps talking, and Yevgeny puts his mind to ignoring it. Eventually, his original simply seems to give up, and the intercom clicks off.

Yevgeny keeps doing pushups.

“Well, he’s definitely not just you,” Sam mutters, watching the camera.

Steve doesn’t respond right away, glancing towards Sam and waiting for some kind of explanation.

“I saw your file, pre-serum. You’d have died doing one pushup. He’s at... what, seventy pushups? He hasn’t even paused. So either they tampered with your code, or he’s got something else going on.”

Steve fidgets at the idea. The idea of someone--HYDRA, if he’s being honest with himself--messing around with his genetics is horrifying. The whole idea of them cloning him is horrifying.

But it’s true, and he’s not able to deny it anymore.

“Are we at the point where we tell someone yet?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow.

Steve knows he can’t say no. Not with his clone in the holding cell, still doing pushups.


	8. Chapter 8

The intercom doesn’t click on for what seems like hours. He has no sense of time, so he tries to count things by sets. A set of a hundred pushups. Then he counts to two hundred and does it over again.

He loses count.

His arms are aching by the time he gives up, rolling onto his back on the floor.

He stays that way until, without any warning, the intercom clicks back on again.

It’s not his original. It’s not even in English. Instead, it’s a woman speaking in flawless, familiar Russian.

It makes him miss home.

“ _You did quite a number on Rogers_ ,” the woman says, and Yevgeny is torn on if he should ignore it or not. “ _He’s too soft hearted, but I won’t be making that mistake. I want to know your designation, and I want to know your current status_.”

The intercom clicks off.

Yevgeny is left to lie on the floor in silence, stewing over her demands. He doesn’t want to tell her either, the mysterious woman who speaks Russian as well as he once did.

He wonders if they’re going to starve him out.

He goes back to doing pushups.

“Is that going to work?” Steve mutters under his breath, more to himself than to Natasha herself.

“No.”

Steve squints up at her, and he isn’t the only one--pretty much everyone in the room has turned to look, squinting at Natasha where she sits in front of the control panel.

“Then why bother saying it?” Steve says, trying not to be irritated with her. Even if she _said_ she was just asking for his designation and status, he doesn’t speak enough Russian to know what she actually said. Hearing foreign languages--especially Russian or, god forbid, German--makes him edgy.

“Because it sets the tone. He knows we mean business. And he knows I’m familiar enough with how HYDRA works to know not to ask for a name.”

“Does he not _have_ a name?” Steve asks, his stomach doing flips at the thought of it. The thought that a clone of him exists that doesn’t even have a _name_.

Natasha sighs.

“Everyone has a name. His name just isn’t the thing that matters, as far as HYDRA’s concerned. Someone would have named him, but everything official would use his designation.”

“So why don’t we ask his name, then?” Sam cuts in. “Aren’t we trying to be friendly?”

“He’s a _HYDRA agent_ , in case you missed that part,” Tony replies, looking irritated by the entire conversation.

“He might be a _former_ HYDRA agent,” Sam replies. “Last I checked, active ones aren’t slumming it in the bad part of town.”

Steve’s having a hard time focusing on anything other than the screen, the image of himself--his much younger self--endlessly doing pushups.

“I’m more concerned about the scars,” Bruce adds, arms crossed over his chest. “He has a lot. If we think he has a healing factor, it’s not a very good one. His back's a giant scar, and there’s tons of them all over. The kid must be fifty percent scar tissue.”

“We shouldn’t call him a kid,” Sam cuts in. “Steve thinks he’s probably closer to twenty. He just looks young.”

Natasha doesn’t involve herself in the debate, simply leans forward and clicks the intercom on again, dropping into unintelligible Russian.

“What are you saying now?” Steve asks the moment she flips the intercom off.

“I told him he wouldn’t be getting help from HYDRA.”


	9. Chapter 9

Yevgeny doesn’t understand. The woman--whoever she is--has left him without any context.

Simply _HYDRA won’t be coming to help you_. There’s no explanation for _why_. There’s no detail at all.

He stares at the ceiling.

He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. He doesn’t know if he wants HYDRA to come get him, but the more he thinks of it, the more the answer is no.

He doesn’t know what he wants to do. He doesn’t have any goal, any target. There’s no mission. His only objective was to keep living, and now even that might be gone.

He realizes that he’s crying.

He hasn’t cried since he was five, not since they killed the other clone--the one he called his brother. Not since they beat him so bad he was in bed for weeks, even with his healing factor.

Crying does not help HYDRA. Crying was unbefitting for an agent.

He buries his face in his hands, trying desperately to make it stop. He wants it to stop. He wants it to be over. It doesn’t stop though, simply keeps right on going, and he digs his nails into the skin around his eyes. Better to bleed.

The door opens, and suddenly there are hands on him. He lashes out, making contact sometimes and missing others. He can’t see. A crushing grip wraps around him, pinning his arms against his sides as he struggles.

“Stop it, stop!”

He doesn’t care who's talking. He doesn’t care who’s there. All he can do is struggle feebly, the grip around him too strong.

A woman bends down in front of him, reaching up to grab his face, holding his head still. He tries to bite her, but she’s faster than he is, his eyes still bleary from tears.

“ _HYDRA has fallen. No one will come for you_ ,” the woman says, her voice cold and mechanical. It’s familiar in that way, because he’s so used to hearing that exact same cold tone.

He squirms against the grip, but where’s nowhere for him to go. He’s exhausted from fighting, exhausted from thinking. There’s too much to figure out, too much to try and think his way through.

He sags in the man’s grip, but he doesn’t let go. He’s learned.

“We’ll get you some help, alright?” The man says from behind him, and Yevgeny grits his teeth at the idea. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t know what he needs, but help isn’t it.


	10. Chapter 10

They do better the second time.

They abandon handcuffs, which were never going to hold him properly. Instead they use cuffs of their own, thick metal that runs from just above his wrist to just below his elbow. There’s no give between them, and it keeps his arms stiffly in position in front of him. He couldn’t flip his arms over his head if he tried, and he’s not trying.

He’s not doing much at all. He simply sits in the chair across the table from the red haired woman, staring at the table like he expects it to do a trick.

They even did better on his feet. The man with the beard, all sass and snark, snapped a metal cuff to each ankle. They’re not connected, but they _will be_ if he tries to run, and the idea of the two snapping together while he walks makes it clear enough he’s likely to break something if they do. High powered magnets don’t care about human flesh, or about the angles a human leg is supposed to be able to reach.

The woman is talking, but he’s doing his very best to ignore her. He doesn’t care what she says. She’s still talking in Russian, which makes it a lot harder to ignore, but until she slips into her _voice_ \--the same one everyone giving him orders did--he manages to ignore her.

The moment she does, his brain simply automatically listens, regardless of what he intended.

“ _I want to know how long ago you went rogue_ ,” she says. He decides she can’t possibly know for _sure_ that he went rogue, but it’s as good a guess as any. He did go rogue, after all. There’s not really a lot of other explanations for why a HYDRA agent has spent the last year slumming it in the shittiest part of town.

Even so, he doesn’t answer. He just stares at the table, giving no reaction or sign that he’s heard.

The woman gets up and moves to the door, talking in hushed tones to someone outside. For once he actually _tries_ to listen, but she’s too quiet to be heard without at least moving his head, and he refuses to give any sign at all.

The woman comes back and settles in, her hands folded on the table in front of her.

“ _Mission report, soldier_ ,” she says, in cold, clipped Russian.

His mouth is open before he has the sense to snap it closed, his instincts too ingrained.

She darts across the table, digging her fingers into his hair as she drags his face up to look at her. There’s no anger--she looks as cold and detached as any of his handlers ever did, and his stomach twists into a knot.

“ _Mission report, soldier,”_ she repeats.

The only thing that keeps him from answering is that he can’t, because his mouth opens again to respond. It’s instinctual. Too many years growing up of snapping out reports in response to _exactly_ those words.

He closes his mouth again.

The intercom clicks on above them, but he doesn’t look up the way most might have. Instead he continues staring at her, his eyes fixed.

“Sorry Nat,” the voice says. It’s not his original, and the woman rolls her eyes--no doubt because whoever is on the intercom just gave Yevgeny a piece of personal information about her that he didn’t have before. “I didn’t realize - I think I know what the scar on his neck is. I think his vocal cords were removed.”

The woman--Nat--doesn’t break eye contact. She also doesn’t release his hair, simply holds him there, forcing him to face her.

It is a battle of wills he’s ill prepared for, because his every instinct is to drop his eyes, even though he’s fighting it. Everything about it--the way she talks, the way she holds herself--screams _handler_. She should be in charge. That is how things were, and that is how things always will be.

He drops his eyes.

The woman releases his head, and he goes back to staring at the table.

“ _I assume your Russian is just fine. They wouldn’t have ever let you out if it wasn’t. If you understand, nod your head.”_

His thoughts war in his head. The woman is not HYDRA, but she talks like them. This place is not home, but sometimes it feels like it.

Everything is wrong, but everything is right, and a year's worth of instincts that want him to go crawling home to accept his punishment war with his sense of self preservation.

He nods.

The woman clicks her tongue and gets up again, moving to the door. He doesn’t turn to watch, just stares at the table, and abruptly a piece of paper and a pen are shoved in front of him.

“ _Your designation, and the date you went rogue,”_ she says.

Those two pieces of information are perhaps the most important things he has. His designation is who he _is_ , even more than his name ever was.

Names are changeable--his designation is forever.

The woman pulls his hands up, pressing the pen into them. It’s awkward, but he knows he could write with it.

“ _Your designation_ ,” she repeats.

He was saved before by the fact that he couldn’t have talked if he wanted to, but this--a pen in his hand, being told to write a report--isn’t something he can ignore.

He’s written his designation down before he has time to think about things.

32557038-6.

It feels almost physically painful to see it written out. The number feels like the sum of all that he is, like the woman has made him drag his own soul out and spread it on the table.

“ _Well done, soldier_ ,” the woman says.

He doesn’t know her, but it feels good anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

Steve’s at Natasha’s side before she’s even fully through the door, his hand thrust out as he waits for the paper.

He has to know. He wants to know what the kids name is. If he sees it, he’s sure, he’ll understand.

Natasha doesn’t immediately hand the paper over. She stares at him, and Steve can’t help but feel that she’s looking down on him.

She should. He’s too attached, too close. He has no distance, can’t possibly get any. The boy in the room is _him_ , him as he might have been, and that sort of thing makes it impossible to not care.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Natasha says, still holding onto the paper. “He’s still the same person he was before.”

Steve doesn’t answer, simply holds out his hand for the paper.

Finally, Natasha relinquishes it, setting the paper in his hand.

He knows the numbers. Just looking at him makes his gut do a flip.

“These are Bucky’s,” he mutters under his breath, eyes trailing over the numbers again.

He must be mistaken, but no matter how many times he reads them, they stay the same.

“This is his service number.”

Nat stares at him for a long moment, and then lets out a sigh, holding out her hand for the paper. Steve doesn’t want to let it go. It’s a piece of a puzzle he didn’t even know existed, and he’s desperate for answers.

“Steve, why would HYDRA clone you?”

It takes him a second to process that she isn’t really asking. She already knows the answer, and she’s simply leading him along by the nose to the explanation she’s already found.

“For the serum,” he says. It’s obvious enough to him, but he’s not sure why it’s relevant to the fact that the kid in the room wrote down Bucky’s number.

He pauses, glancing back down to the paper. Not just Bucky’s number. The six is new.

Natasha lets out a sigh.

“He obviously doesn’t have the serum, though. He’s a clone of you when you were small, and whatever knockoff they gave him of the serum was an inferior product. Why would they clone _you_?”

Steve doesn’t know. He stands there, staring at the paper, blissfully unaware that he looks like an older carbon copy of the boy in the room, who continues to stare down at the table blankly.

“Because of Bucky,” he finally says, and Nat shoots him a little smile.

“Human memory isn’t as easy to play with as people would like to think. It’s not as easy as wiping away who a person _was_ if you want to keep all those important skills intact. When you wipe away the context of those skills--the training they received--things become less effective. It’s a careful game they have to play, and they would have made it easier.”

“They?”

Even though he asks, his eyes fall immediately to the little six, stuck to the end like a cancerous growth.

“There would have been at least six, although who knows how many survived. Easier to get Barnes to play along if they can take advantage of what remains of his memories. Even better that the clone is a younger version of you, one he’s immediately familiar with. He looks at the clone, the part of his brain that still has any sort of memory clicks on and tells him that the person he’s looking at is a _good friend_. The fact that he doesn’t remember perfectly just makes things easier for them.”

Natasha explains it all with cold detachment, but just hearing it makes Steve sick to his stomach. He can’t be detached. Not when she’s talking about Bucky. Not when she’s talking about someone cloned from _him_.

“He might have an idea where Barnes is,” Sam says, dragging Steve away from his own thoughts.

“Doubtful,” Natasha cuts in before Steve can even get properly hopeful. “Based on what we know and how he’s acting, he probably defected before HYDRA collapsed. Even so, this does help. Having him here when he’s not in the files anywhere means that what we suspected was correct--there’s more of HYDRA that we haven’t found yet.”

Steve’s still staring at the number.

“And what exactly are we going to do with a HYDRA clone of Steve, exactly? Because the key word in that sentence isn’t _clone_ , it’s _HYDRA_ ,” Tony says.

“Defected,” Sam cuts in.

“Allegedly defected,” Tony replies. “Just because it’s Nat’s pet theory doesn’t mean it’s true. The only thing we’ve actually got out of him is that he understands Russian and his number. We don’t even know if the number is actually his.”

“It’s his,” Nat says, and she sounds so sure of herself that Steve’s immediately sure too.

“That doesn’t change the fact that he grew up with them. He’s probably been brainwash-” Tony starts, and Nat turns to him, drawing herself up to her full height.

“He wasn’t brainwashed.”

Tony snorts, gesturing to the screen.

“What do you call that, then?”

“Brainwashing is changing someone’s pre-existing beliefs. He was indoctrinated. He grew up HYDRA. He doesn’t have a base that was changed in the first place. He didn’t have family he was taken from, or ideas that were crushed. His idea of what the world is like has been corrupted from the start.”

Steve knows that, for a second at least, it’s not just _him_ that’s too close to the topic at hand. Nat’s speaking from experience, and Clint neatly inserts himself into the conversation, physically stepping in front of Natasha.

“What Nat means to say is that the methods for bringing him out of it are different. Someone indoctrinated needs to be shown the truth, they don’t need to have the brainwashing broken apart. He might have run away because he realized that HYDRA was lying to him, which would make our job far easier.”

“You’re splitting hairs,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “What matters is that he’s HYDRA, and we need to figure out everything he knows as fast as possible.”

Even Steve can’t argue that. The boy’s a goldmine of information, but he’s one buried under layers of rock they’ll have to dig through to get to it.

“I’ll handle it,” Natasha says.

Steve wishes it was him instead, but he knows he wouldn’t be able to handle it half as well as she would. Better that he simply watches.


	12. Chapter 12

The door clicks open, but Yevgeny doesn’t look up. He feels empty. He feels tired. He’s torn between staying exactly where he is, staring at the table, and simply lying down to sleep.

It’s the woman again, the one the voice on the intercom called Nat. He can tell simply by the sound of her footsteps.

She’s dangerous, but he knows that more from the way she holds herself than from any sound she makes.

She sits across the table from him, and even with his head down he can feel the weight of her stare.

“ _You abandoned your post_ ,” she says, and it’s like a kick to the gut. He flinches despite his attempts to maintain control, and he swallows hard, telling himself not to be stupid. She doesn’t know him. She isn’t HYDRA. She’s simply guessing, and he’s playing right into her hands by reacting.

“ _You abandoned your post. You betrayed HYDRA. You’re no longer fit to be a soldier_.”

He chokes, a tiny weeze that he tries desperately to cover. This is worse. This is worse than anything anyone has ever said to him. Not being good enough was bad enough. This is even worse. This is willful betrayal.

Death wouldn’t be enough to punish him for it.

He claws at the skin of his hands, the only thing he can reach. He can’t look at her. He tells himself over and over again that she’s not one of his handlers. She’s not HYDRA. But no matter how many times he tells himself, he knows that she’s only saying what they _would_ be saying if they were there.

“I can’t watch this,” Steve mumbles under his breath. “She’s torturing him.”

Clint stands to his right, watching the screen, and shakes his head.

“She’s just getting started.”

She’s had him in the room for less than ten minutes, and she’s already doing a better job of tearing him apart than half his _real_ handlers. She knows just where to hit. She knows just how to remind him that he’s a failure, that he’s betrayed HYDRA.

He hasn’t said a word, but his reactions are no doubt telling enough. She’s stripping every secret from him without him even responding to her, and she’s doing it with a practiced grace.

She slides the paper and pen over the table to him again, tapping it with a finger.

“ _You have nothing left, soldier. If HYDRA finds you, they will kill you. I am your only ally, now. I am the only one who will keep HYDRA from killing you_.”

He knows that it’s manipulation. He knows that she’s saying it so that he’ll do what she wants.

But that doesn’t make it not true.

If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t work. If he hadn’t _actually_ defected, if he hadn’t actually turned his back on HYDRA, he’d be able to sit there stone faced and impassive.

He’s only breaking because he’s already broken.

“ _Your original is in the other room, watching you. Did they tell you that he’d fallen? How typical of HYDRA, to claim victory where there is none_.”

Yevgeny stirs, bothered by the claim. HYDRA is strong. HYDRA always claims victory in the end, because HYDRA cannot be defeated. It cannot fall. There will always be more.

As if she can read his mind, she pounces on his fears.

“ _HYDRA has collapsed. Your original has defeated them, destroyed their leadership and ruined their bases. Even now he hunts them down to the last man, until none remain. He will root them out where he finds them, but already they are few and far between.”_

Yevgeny tries not to show how distressed he is. The idea that it’s true--that it might be true--makes too much sense. It explains how HYDRA--ever present, ever aware--has somehow managed to fail to catch him after a year. It explains how he managed to kill one of their leaders and escape without a hitch.

HYDRA was falling apart.

Yevgeny scratches at the skin of his palms, digging his nails in until he draws blood. He needs to ground himself. He needs to stop thinking those kind of things. He needs to have faith, even if he turned his back on them.

“ _Your original is going to stop HYDRA. Now he waits outside, watching you on the screen, wondering if_ you’re HYDRA or not.”

The threat is there, real and dangerous, and Yevgeny digs his nails in harder. There’s blood on his hands, both literally and metaphorically.

His original will kill him.

His original is an enemy of HYDRA. His original must know by now that he _is_ HYDRA. His original will kill him.

“ _Six_ ,” the woman says, and he glances up, unsure if she’s talking to him. She obviously is, and he realizes she’s calling him by his number.

No one’s called him by his number since he was given the serum. No one’s called him by his number since he was given his name.

“ _You are not broken, Six.”_

Yevgeny goes very, very quiet. He doesn’t understand what sort of mind game she’s playing. He’s had a lot of training on how not to break down in interrogation, but nothing prepared him for this.

“ _You are not broken. You are not wrong. You left because HYDRA is rotten, because they have been lying. HYDRA is not helping. HYDRA is destroying the world, and you want to stop it.”_

He doesn’t really. He doesn’t care about the world, for the world has done nothing for him. But he doesn’t want to hurt anymore, and he latches onto her words.

“ _HYDRA has been lying to you. They have lied to you over and over again so that you would do as you're told. They needed clones, because normal people would not follow orders the way they wanted. Normal people would have had lives, and would know enough to know that HYDRA was lying to them. You were denied that opportunity. You were not told what the world was like. You were not told that Steve Rogers was alive. They no doubt feared you might seek him out, even if he was declared an enemy of HYDRA.”_

Vevgeny makes a noise. Only his missing vocal cords keep him quiet, keep him from repeating back the name. Steve. Steevi. The Asset knew him.

No. The Asset knew his original.

Yevgeny stops scratching.

The anger--the anger he was always insulted for, was always told was unbefitting his position--bubbles back up. The anger is who he is, the one part of him that’s truly _him_ , not Steve Rogers. None of the other clones got angry like he did.

He clenches his teeth so hard he fears they might crack, his entire body tense.

He understands at last why he exists.


	13. Chapter 13

Steve doesn’t understand enough Russian to follow what’s going on. All he can do is stare, trying to guess at what she’s saying from the words he _does_ know. HYDRA is easy. He knows _soldat_ \--soldier--but Nat only says it briefly.

He knows _zakazy_ \--orders--but without context it’s meaningless.

He’d give one of his kidney’s for a proper translation.

He watches the boy flinch at his name, but he doesn’t understand _why_.

Clint whistles.

Steve immediately turns, staring at the other man, his brain connecting the dots.

“You understand _Russian?”_ Steve says, vaguely horrified that it’s taken him so long to realize.

Clint gives him only a brief glance.

“Did you think they sent me into Russia without knowing how to speak the language? That would have been a hell of a liability.”

Steve rubs at his temple, glancing back to Clint.

“Are you going to share with the class, then? Or do I have to guess?”

“She broke him down. Reminded him that he’s useless to HYDRA now. He betrayed them. Even if we don’t know that stuff for sure, his reactions make it obvious enough that she was dead on. She started pointing out the lies--like the fact that you were dead--and he collapsed like a house of cards.”

Steve turns back to the monitor, listening Natasha continue to talk, even if he doesn’t understand what she’s saying.

“Why’d he flinch when she said my name?”

There are a lot of possibilities, and Steve doesn’t like any of them.

Clint shrugs.

“Can’t be sure. If I had to guess, he probably didn’t know who his original was. HYDRA’s like that. They probably called you ‘the enemy’ a lot, but never actually named you. Beyond that, who knows?”

On the screen, Steve watches Natasha get up, opening the door and stepping into the observation room.

“You should talk to him,” she says immediately, staring at him.

Steve pauses, jabbing at himself with a finger.

“Me? In case you missed the memo, I don’t speak Russian.”

Natasha shrugs.

“Doesn’t matter. He speaks English.”

Sam lets out a groan.

“Are you kidding me right now? All that time I spent talking to him, I just _assumed_ he didn’t understand, and instead he was just ignoring me?”

Nat turns back to Steve to hide her smirk from Sam, nodding towards the door.

“You’re his original. The closest thing he has to a father, since it isn’t like anyone in HYDRA was going to be stepping up to the plate.”

“One, if I was his father, I’d be that awful deadbeat dad who didn’t even know his son _existed_ , and two, I’m not nearly old enough to be his father. I’m - what did we decide, thirty? Thirty one? He’s probably eighteen, maybe even twenty.”

“You’re missing the point, Steve,” Sam says.

Steve grumbles under his breath, glancing towards the door.

“I don’t even know what to say to him. What do you say to your clone? Hi, I’m you, only I had a life that didn’t involve getting jerked around by HYDRA? He probably hates me.”

“He definitely hates you,” Natasha says, and Sam lets out a groan.

“You’re not helping, you know.”

“What do I even _say_ to him? What could I possibly say?”

He can’t imagine what he could say that would make things better, but Sam pats him on the back, scooting him over towards the door.

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

He doesn’t think they he will.


	14. Chapter 14

The footsteps are different when the door opens again. It’s not the same woman--these footsteps are firmer, carrying more weight.

He knows who it’s going to be. He knows because she told him, but even so he doesn’t look up. He simply stares down at his hands, picking at the blood under his nails as best he can.

The man clears his throat, and Yevgeny dutifully ignores him.

“Listen. I know you don’t want to hear any of this from me, but...”

The main trails off, likely bothered by the lack of response. Yevgeny gives no sign he’s noticed the man is even in the room. He refuses to give him that satisfaction.

“It was wrong. What happened to you--what’s still happening to you--is wrong. You didn’t choose to become HYDRA, and it isn’t fair for anyone to blame you for that. What matters are the decisions _you_ made, and you _chose_ to defect.”

Yevgeny doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to sit there and listen to this man--this man who had everything--spout boring, useless platitudes at him. Things being _wrong_ or _right_ don’t matter, and he wishes he still could speak so he could tell him as much.

Right and wrong aren’t things that matter. What matters are _results_.

“HYDRA--they’re monsters. They just take,” the man continues, seemingly oblivious to Yevgeny’s hidden annoyance. “They took my best friend from me, and they took your c- your life from you. Your choice.”

He’s wrong. HYDRA didn’t take his life. HYDRA gave him his life. If not for HYDRA, he wouldn’t be there at all, but it’s a fact that the man seems to have missed. He has no happy childhood that was stolen from him. No matter what happened, he would never have had any childhood at all.

“I want to help, if you’ll let me. I’m sure everyone here will be able to help. Nat--Nat would probably be the best at it. She’s like you--she broke away from a group like HYDRA, made a name for herself on her own terms.”

Yevgeny doesn’t care about _most_ of what his original is saying, but his mind latches onto things when he talks about the woman. The woman is interesting. The woman is something he can focus on, because it’s about someone that isn’t him, and that's what matters.

The woman is a comfortable distance away, so he lets himself focus on anything her.

Anything but himself.

His original lapses into an uncomfortable silence, clearly unsure of what to say next. Even without looking, Yevgeny can imagine what kind of expression he must have, even if he can’t imagine the man’s face. The man’s face must be like his own, but even still, he can’t picture it.

He decides to see. He glances up quickly, eyes flicking over the man’s face. He _does_ look like him, and he understands now how the man who first caught him recognized him.

They could be the same person, if not for the age gap. Yevgeny is smaller (it’s obvious even sitting down), and not as fit, but the shape of their faces are the same, and their eyes are identical.

Yevgeny drops his eyes. He doesn’t want to see the man smiling in a way he’s never, ever been able to.


	15. Chapter 15

The boy doesn’t fight when Natasha takes him out of the room. He doesn’t argue when she gives him food and water, doesn’t complain when she returns him to the cell he first woke up in.

There’s a bed, and he lies down to sleep almost immediately.

Steve is waiting when she steps out of the room, pacing with such fervor that everyone else has decided to simply give him space.

“I should have asked about Bucky. If anyone would know, he would.”

“His information is probably older than ours is. It isn’t going to help.”

“We could still try.”

Natasha lets out a breath, reaching up to readjust her hair. She doesn’t have time for Steve’s dramatics at the moment. He’s bad enough being impartial about the Winter Soldier, and even worse about being impartial about the Winter Soldier and his little clone handler.

She has her own suspicions, but she keeps them to herself. There’s no point in riling up Steve unnecessarily.

“We need to decide what our priorities are,” she says instead. Knowing how to prioritize her time is the most important piece of information she can gain at the moment, and there’s no telling how many hours the boy will sleep.

“Information on Barnes would be nice,” Sam says, glancing towards the monitor.

“Information about who’s left in HYDRA would be better. We know we’re missing people--the last thing we want is for someone we missed to try and make HYDRA version two point oh,” Tony says.

“Tony’s right. The information he has on Barnes isn’t going to help us directly find him, because Barnes has been in the wind too long. Information on who’s working for HYDRA? That’s more relevant.”

“How do we even know he’s going to tell the truth?” Clint asks, and Natasha has to hide a smile. She doesn’t think Clint’s really asking--he knows better--but instead he’s simply prompting the question so that her reply can ease any concerns that anyone _else_ might be having.

“He doesn’t know who we already have. Give him everyone--a set of names and photos for the whole cabinet, all the senators... bury him in names and faces. If he identifies people we already know, we know his information can be trusted. If he misses out on big names like Pierce, we’ll know something's up.”

She really doesn’t think he’ll lie. He’ll either give them the truth, or he’ll give them nothing.

“Can I at least _ask_ him about Barnes?” Steve says, and Natasha doesn’t bother to hide the disappointment on her face.

“We all know you’re eager to find him, Steve, but you don’t want to go down that path.”

Steve seems to hesitate, then frowns at her.

“What are you talking about?”

She doesn’t know for sure. She has only her instinct, only her own experiences to go by. But she knows how HYDRA worked. She knows the sorts of things that they did.

“It might be better to leave that buried. When you find Barnes, are you going to interrogate him over every single thing he did? Are you going to ask him to recount every single person he killed, every single mission he was sent on?”

The answer is obviously no, but she needs Steve to say it for himself.

“That would - it wouldn't help him. It wouldn’t help anyone,” Steve says after a long pause. “This is different. If this could help find Buck-”

Natasha doesn’t let him finish that thought.

“And the same goes for Barnes. Interrogating Barnes might give closure to people who never knew what happened to their relatives.”

She doesn’t let her eyes move to Tony, even if that’s her instinct.

Even if she’s never told him, she knows.

Steve shifts, obviously uncomfortable with the idea, and Sam forces his way into the conversation to try and ease the tension.

“This doesn’t have to be answered right now, right? It’s not like he’s going to answer anyway. Just let Nat do her thing, and we can deal with all this later.”

It isn’t an answer, or really any kind of solution at all. But it’s enough to ease the obvious strain in Steve’s shoulders, and he nods.

“Finding HYDRA agents for now. Everything else later,” he finally says, nodding to Tony.

“Binder with every important person in the US will be ready in five minutes,” Tony says, and Steve raises an eyebrow.

“What, did you think I was going to wait? It’s already printing. It’ll take five minutes to get up here.”


	16. Chapter 16

He wakes in his room to the sound of footsteps. The woman with the red hair is there, standing over him and watching him.

He was asleep. He suspects that she thought he wasn’t, but he doesn’t bother to check.

“ _Did HYDRA let you sleep in like this? Who said you could simply lie in bed all day, soldier?”_

He’s back to soldier. He’s not Six anymore. Even so, it has the effect she no doubt desired, because he’s sitting upright before he has time to think about if he should continue to try and be asleep.

She’s holding a thick binder in her hands, and she holds it out.

“ _You have a mission_ ,” she says as he takes it. He considers assaulting her with it, but he doesn’t have it in him to do so. She would win. She would win and he would lose just like he’s lost every fight in the past twenty four hours.

Forty-eight?

He isn’t clear how long he’s been there. One sleep or two? There’s no windows on his cell, and nothing to give away the passage of time but the food he’s given.

He decides it doesn’t matter anyway.

“ _I want you to identify all HYDRA agents within the files. Simply tear out the sheets of those that you recognize and pass them to me.”_

He stares at the binder, but he doesn’t open it. Not right away.

“ _Do you not understand, soldier? Did they not teach you how to respond when given an order?”_

He swallows hard, nodding quickly. He can’t really respond--even if the urge to say _Yes, sir_ is so strong he can feel it bubbling up in his throat--so the nod will have to do.

He opens the binder.

Every page is just a large photo of a person--mostly men--with a name underneath. He can read English just fine, even if he doesn’t like it, and he carefully starts to flip through, searching for some kind of familiarity.

“ _Hold out your arm, Six,”_ the woman says. He’s Six again. Soldier when she gives orders, Six when she tries to be friendly. 

He does, though. Even if it’s not an order.

He doesn’t even look up as she presses the needle into his vein, pulling three tubes of blood out of his vein into neat little vials.

It’s not the first time he’s had blood taken, and it’s not the last. He’s always had neat veins, at least.

She pulls out a bandage to cover the hole, but it’s already stitched itself back together.

“ _How old were you when they gave you the serum?”_ she asks. He can only shrug--he doesn’t know. No one told him how old he was, and the idea of birthdays was something he caught onto when he was much, much older.

“ _Guess.”_

He does. He knows he got the serum after he killed the last clone. He knows how old two was, and that gives him a starting point.

He holds up eight fingers, his best possible guess.

The woman nods as he goes back to the binder, going to the door and passing the vials out.

When she returns, he has a paper ready for her--a man he recognizes. HYDRA. He passes it up, continuing to flip as he does.

She doesn’t comment.

He finds three more in short order, tearing them neatly out before passing them up. There’s no reaction, and the room becomes comfortably silent.

It feels like he’s gone back in time, like he’s doing tasks for a handler all over again to prove his competence.

“ _How old were you when they took your vocal cords?”_ The woman asks, and there’s something slightly different about it, about her tone of voice.

Something is different about this question, and he glances up to watch her face as he answers. He doesn’t bother with shrugging, with having her tell him to guess.

He stops flipping long enough to flash both his hands, than six fingers.

Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, and she nods.

Yevgeny jerks back when he hand abruptly comes up, but he forces himself to stay still. Running won’t get him anywhere. There’s nowhere for him to run, nowhere for him to go. He has to play nice. He has to please this new woman, this new handler, even if she isn’t HYDRA. He has to do what she says.

He stays still as she runs a finger over the thin scar that remains from the surgery where they took out his vocal cords.

She withdraws and shakes her head, but what she’s gained from it--whatever information she gleaned--is lost on him.

He finds another familiar face and tears it out, passing it to her.

It takes him almost thirty minutes to get through the rest of the binder, finally snapping it closed. In total he’s found thirty-eight people he recognizes.

He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

“ _Well done, soldier,”_ she says in her handler voice, taking the binder from him and tucking it under her arm.

Hearing it makes things easier. He’s still doing a good job, even if he’s not doing a good job for HYDRA.


	17. Chapter 17

Steve isn’t the only one crowding the door when Natasha ducks out. More or less everyone in the room is obviously waiting to see what names he’s pulled out, but they at least have the sense to wait for her to close the door before asking.

Bruce is the only one who doesn’t seem to care. He’s taken up a spot by the monitor, watching the boy in the room.

“And?” Steve says.

“I’d say it’s valid. I only glanced as he pulled them out, but I recognized most of them. He didn’t get all the HYDRA agents we found, but he got quite a few, and he got several we _don’t_ have.”

She sets the papers down, sorting through them quickly. One pile for the ones they know, one for the ones they don’t.

Tony immediately grabs the pile that they don’t, flipping through and whistling as he does so.

“Oohhh, this is going to cause trouble.”

He doesn’t make any further comment, just ducks his way out of the room with the papers held in one hand.

Steve glances after him for a moment, and then lets out a sigh.

“This doesn’t help him, though. This helps us against HYDRA, but it doesn’t resolve in any way what’s going to happen to him.”

“First priority is getting him settled. He needs to be able to function normally,” Natasha says, straight and to the point.

“He needs to be able to communicate,” replies Steve.

“Give him a pen and a paper, then,” Sam says. “He seemed to do just fine with Nat.”

“We could teach him to sign,” Clint cuts in.

“A good idea, but inefficient for long term. He’s got by this long without being able to talk, so it isn’t a priority. Finer details can be written down,” Natasha says.

“Why would they even do that to him?” Steve says, and it takes all of her training to not groan out loud. She doesn’t want to have to explain things to Steve. As well meaning as he is, she doesn’t think he’ll ever really understand what it was like. Clint didn’t experience it, but he can at least wrap his head around it. Steve, on the other hand, is going to it through a double culture barrier.

A triple culture barrier, if she’s being honest.

“Because he didn’t need them,” Clint says before she can. “He’s a slave, an object, not a person. The perfect soldier doesn’t need to talk back, you can acknowledge orders without talking at all.”

Natasha simply nods.

“I’m going to get him some food. If I’m going to be playing handler for him, I’ll need to be the one to hand over the food. I’ll feed him. I’ll explain the basics of how things works. If I can keep him contained, so he doesn’t look like he’s going to maul anyone, I’ll get what information out of him I can.”

Steve obviously isn’t comfortable with the way she’s talking--he flinches when she mentions the word handler--but he doesn’t protest.

That’s probably for the best.


	18. Chapter 18

It takes two weeks for Natasha to get him down to a reasonable level. Two weeks of drilling the routine into him. He wakes up. He does pushups until she comes to get him. He showers methodically. He eats. He goes back to his room. Later, Natasha comes back for him. They handle whatever task or discussion is set for the day. He goes back to his room. She takes him to the gym to work out, burning off all his excess energy. He eats. He goes back to his room to sleep.

Tony comments you could set a clock by him, and you could. Natasha knows how important the schedule is, how ingrained that kind of routine must have been. Getting him on a new one is hard, but by the second week he’s up and waiting at the door at the right time.

She starts to mix things up. Clint comes to get him, and despite his original hesitance, he lets it happen. Clint handles the morning routine, and Natasha handles the night. When Bruce shows up to retrieve him for his daily activity, there’s hesitation, but he does end up going along with Bruce to the lab, sitting in a chair and getting his blood drawn repeatedly.

He doesn’t try and kill Bruce, which Sam complains is unfair. He’s tried to kill pretty much everyone else, after all.

For the most part, Steve stays away. It’s obvious enough the toll having Six around is having on him, and the more they learn, the less comfortable Steve is.

Natasha feels like she should have known he would react that way, but decides it’s probably easier for everyone if he has some space.

Clint insists on teaching him to sign, and he turns out to be shockingly good at it, even if he clearly isn’t very interested in talking. He already knows some signs, although some of them are out of date, and it’s obvious enough that someone gutted standard military handsigns and mangled it together with Russian sign language to get something useable.

Eventually, Nat decides that it’s time for proper introductions, but before that, he needs a name.

* * *

 

“Do you have a name?”

She’s forced him to switch to English. English when friendly, Russian when giving orders. It makes the line that much more clear, helping him distinguish between the two. It’s less like brainwashing, she tells herself, if he can be aware of it.

She’s bringing him out of it, not putting him back in, she has to remind herself.

Six pauses for a long moment, glancing at her. He’s only been Six, never anything else. 

She decides to rephrase.

“Do you have something you want people to call you? It doesn’t have to be what they called you. Just something that isn’t Six. People have names, not numbers.”

He seems to have to take a moment to stew over it, to consider the implications. A part of her wonders if he’s even going to answer, but finally he nods.

She pulls the notebook out of her pocket, sliding it towards him. Giving him objects--letting him _keep_  objects--seems like too great a risk to start out with. She still can’t be entirely sure he isn’t going to break out and try and murder everyone, so giving him the tools to do so will have to wait.

He takes the notebook and stares down at it. After a moment, he starts to scribble, and eventually the scribbles form a question in messy cyrillic.

Obviously penmanship wasn’t on the menu back at HYDRA.

She takes the notepad and glances down, letting out a snort when she realizes what he’s written.

_Your name?_

“Natalia,” she says. “But everyone calls me Natasha.” She doesn’t bother to tell him to just call her Nat. He’s already heard her called that for one, and two he’s unlikely to ever call her anything at all. One of the few benefits of being nonverbal--forgetting a name is never an issue.

“The one who gets you in the mornings is Clint. I’ll introduce everyone else later tonight.”

He nods dutifully, the good little soldier that he is. Too often she finds him spacing out, staring at nothing. A defense mechanism she recognizes, but not one with an immediate solution.

Time is the only thing that’s going to cure that.

“You still need a name,” she insists, sliding the notepad back towards him.

He takes it, holding it in his hand and staring down at the sheet. She wonders how long it’ll take to get him to give one up, and considers simply naming himself. She doubts it would make a difference to _him_ , but it would certainly make a difference to _Steve_  if he found out.

He finally writes something down, sliding the paper over to her.

“Yevgeny,” she reads. At least it’s easy. At least she’s not going to have to come up with an English equivalent.

“ _It’s time to go_ ,” she says in Russian, and he’s on his feet before she’s even finished.


	19. Chapter 19

There are too many people.

Yevgeny follows behind the red haired woman as she leads him through the building. There’s a large room, and all the people he’s met and so many more are there. He knows, instinctively, that there can’t be even ten people, but he feels like his head is spinning.

It’s happening all over again.

* * *

 

Nat feels like she’s already put it off too long. She knows that he lived by himself, mostly on the streets, but she doesn’t know what he was really doing during the time. She doesn’t know what he was doing _before_ , either. What she does know are little hints, little signs of how things were. The fact that he holds himself combat ready at all times. The way he wolfs down his food as fast as he can eat it. His complete lack of reaction to anything medical.

Watching him dissociate in the middle of Bruce’s lab is a surreal experience, but it’s better than the alternative.

She can’t help but feel wary as she leads him into the room. It’s as open as it can get, as far from a HYDRA lab as it could possibly be. Steve is there, but there’s no way around that. There’s no outsiders outside of Sam himself, and she’s done everything she can to minimize the situation. He’s just meeting people.

Tony’s already drinking, sprawled out on the couch, and everyone else is scattered around the room. Her idea--better to keep _food_  and _business_  separate, to help keep his schedule.

“You remember Steve,” she says, nodding towards where Steve stands near the window, talking with Sam. It’s not a question.

Yevgeny nods, but he doesn’t do anything else. He’s still as a statue, and it occurs to her that part of his training might _not_  have been learning how to socialize. It had been for her, but there’s no reason to assume that someone like him--someone who probably only left HYDRA compounds on missions, if at all--would be trained that way.

The lack of talking makes socializing _hard_.

Tony makes not talking easy.

She taps Yevgeny on the shoulder, pointing out where Tony is on the couch. Tony is good practice--he’s both completely unfamiliar, and he’s more than capable of talking enough for the both of them.

“Go talk with him, I need to talk to Steve,” she says.

It’s not an order, but he nods as if it is, immediately heading towards Tony.

She heads over to where Steve is lingering. It’s obvious that he’s sneaking glances at Yevgeny over his shoulder, and she only has his full attention when she starts to talk.

“For reference, his name is Yevgeny. I got it out of him earlier today,” she explains.

“Anything about-” Steve starts, and Natasha cuts him off.

“No, nothing about Barnes. I’m not asking him about his life. Whatever information he’s going to give is just going to make you unhappy, and it won’t even be relevant. If Barnes pops up, then I’ll ask him to see if he can help, but I’m not going to -”

She doesn’t get to finish the sentence. There’s a loud sound behind her like a body hitting the floor, and in a room filled with people who are combat ready it might as well be as loud as a plane taking off.

She has a handgun ready before she’s even finished turning, and absolutely everyone in the room is sprinting towards the sound.

Natasha’s up and over the back of the nearest couch before she has time to process what she’s seeing.

When she does, her brain screeches to a halt.

Tony looks equal parts confused and upset, still sprawled out on the couch. His pants are undone, and he’s obviously trying to zip himself back up.

Yevgeny’s on the floor, looking just as confused and bewildered, but already recovering. Already shifting to bend over, to grovel, to scrape his head on the floor until he’s forgiven.

He hasn’t even started doing it, but she knows what he’s going to do.

She grabs his hair before he can, hauling him upright.

“ _Nyet!”_ She snaps, loud enough to grab his attention. He freezes, and she immediately turns, glancing over her shoulder to give Tony a firm stare.

“Don’t do _anything_  until I get back,” she snaps, shifting her grip from Yvegeny’s hair to his shoulder and all but pushing him out of the room.

He goes willingly, and she hates herself for not realizing sooner.


	20. Chapter 20

He has done something wrong. Sitting in his room he feels like vomiting, feels like being sick and curling up in a corner. He feels lost, the brief slice of home--of familiarity--gone in a moment.

He was doing the right thing, but it was still wrong.

Yevgeny buries his head in his hands and curls up on the bed.

He doesn’t move.

* * *

 

Natasha paces. The longer she takes, the worse things will be. Even if she told him not to do anything, she’s sure Tony’s already started talking. She should have been more specific, should have told him to shut his _mouth_ , rather than just not doing anything.

She double checks Yevgeny on the monitor--still curled up on the bed--and then decides she can’t put it off any longer.

The room is dead silent when she gets back. She almost wishes people were talking, because then she could cut in and handle things. Having everyone suddenly turn to look at her puts her on the spot, and she’s not yet sure what to say.

She knows what the truth is, but she also knows that the truth will hurt.

Steve isn’t prepared for the truth, but there isn’t another option.

“What the hell was _that_?” Tony asks, looking flustered and just as confused as he was immediately after it happened. Nat doesn’t think it’s sunk in at all--he’s still in the initial surprise stage.

Clint looks grim. He, at least, knows the implications.

Bruce looks worse than grim.

“He misunderstood,” Bruce says, his voice so low that it’s barely audible. “He thought this was something else.”

“What the fuck did he think it was, an orgy?” Tony snaps, and Nat decides she preferred when he was shellshocked, rather than confused and angry.

“Yes,” both she and Clint say in perfect unison.

Tony goes absolutely, utterly silent.

Steve is the worst of it though. Sam looks pained, but Steve looks like someone just kicked him in the gut.

“They -” Steve starts, forcing himself to stop, clearly choking down his anger even as it leaks into his voice. “They _raped_  him?”

Steve is so laughably, adorably naive that Natasha almost laughs in his face.

She expects Clint to say something before she can compose herself, but it’s Bruce that does.

“No, they raped him _a lot_. When people react like he did, it means they’ve suffered _years_  of sexual abuse. He’s been conditioned. He did what he did because he thought that was what he was supposed to do, and now we’re standing around arguing over the details while he tries to figure out what he did wrong!”

Bruce is shouting by the time he gets to the end, which is the surest sign that trouble is coming.

“Woah there,” Tony cuts in. “Let's all just - let’s just take a step back.”

It’s obvious enough what he’s afraid of. The last thing they need is Big Green going on a rampage in the middle of the mess.

“I’m fine - I’m fine, fine,” Bruce repeats, before abruptly turning and heading to the door. “I’m going back to my lab, don’t bother me.”

No one stops him.

Steve adjusts and readjusts the way his arms are folded five times in a row while Nat watches, fidgeting as much as he can without drawing too much attention to himself. He’s so obviously uncomfortable that everyone in the room knows it, but he’s still trying to make an effort to hide it.

“This was what I meant when I said it would be better not to go digging into his past. HYDRA aren’t good people. They aren’t going to look at someone like him and say ‘hm, we better not have sex with him, he’s not able to fully understand his situation and be able to consent’,” Nat says, staring at Steve. She’s trying hard not to glare--he has it bad enough--but it’s hard not to. He’s almost infuriatingly naive at times, and this is certainly one of those times.

“He’s a _kid_ ,” Steve says, his tone pleading.

“He was never a kid, Steve. He didn’t have a childhood. He didn’t have a family. He was born a soldier and he’ll die a soldier.”

Steve looks like _she_  punched him in the gut.

He stares at her for a long moment and then turns away, heading for the stairs. Sam follows closely behind, a fact that she finds relieving. Sam will make sure he’s alright.

Tony’s simply staring.

“I’m going to go check on the kid,” Clint says, immediately heading towards the elevator.

She’s alone with Tony.

“You should talk to Pepper,” she says firmly, staring down at him where he still sits on the couch.

“About what? About the fact that some sixteen year old clone of Steve decided to try and suck my dick?”

Natasha stares at him.

“Yes.”

He was obviously expecting another answer, because he snorts, looking away.

She doesn’t say anything else, just heads back after Clint.


	21. Chapter 21

There are footsteps. They’re not the heavy ones of his original, or the light ones of his new handler. They’re the average ones, the ones he’s come to associate with the man who fetches him in the morning, who tries to make small talk while he washes.

Clint, she called him.

The bed sags as Clint sits down beside him, but he doesn’t open his eyes.

He feels Clint touch his shoulder, and he lashes out. He grabs the man’s wrist and pulls hard to throw him off balance.

Clint is prepared. He rolls with the throw, using Yevgeny’s momentum against him to haul him out of the bed.

Yevgeny hits the floor with a pop, his arm twisting painfully under him.

“That was not my brightest idea,” Clint mutters behind him.

Clint touches his shoulder--probably to help him get up--and he jerks away, shoving himself along the floor as he rolls onto his back.

He goes to kick Clint--wherever he can hit, realistically--but he’s already out of reach.

Yevgeny lets out a grunt as he lifts himself, slamming himself back onto the floor to pop his shoulder back into the socket.

It isn’t the first time he’s had to do it, and the pain is over quickly.

He stays on the floor. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do.

Clint clears his throat as he straightens up, mumbling under his breath for a moment before pulling himself together.

“That was a mess,” Clint mutters. “So I’m not going to touch you, alright? That was my awful attempt at being supportive.”

Yevgeny doesn’t move. He lets his eyes drift closed, wondering if he’s wrong. Is it Clint? Is he supposed to please Clint?

“Okay, how about this. What do _you_  want to do? And you can just tell me. You should still be able to talk, even without your cords--I can read lips just fine, thanks.”

Yevgeny doesn’t respond right away. In truth, he doesn’t know _how_  to respond. Clint might as well be speaking a different language entirely, because no one has ever asked him what he wants to do.

What he wants to do doesn’t matter, and he wishes he could say that.

He decides that he can. He pushes himself upright, the soreness in his arm already fading as he turns to find Clint looking completely fine, sitting cross legged on the floor just out of reach.

 _What do you want_ , Yevgeny mouths. His mouth feels strange, like he hasn’t opened it in ages, but it’s just his imagination. He opens it to eat all the time.

Clint lets out a snort.

“You can’t just turn that around on me. The question was what _you_  wanted. What would calm you down. You just had an awful time, and I have absolutely no idea how you cope with that.”

The correct answer is that he doesn’t. Yevgeny copes by burying his feelings deep enough that he hopes they never come back up. Healthy coping mechanisms are not a part of the HYDRA mentality. Working through the pain is, whether it’s mental or physical.

Order through pain.

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Clint says, taking his silence as a refusal to answer. “What do you feel good doing?”

That question is an easier one to handle.

 _Shooting_ , he mouths. He feels good shooting. Shooting is, in it’s own way, why he’s there at all. Because they stopped him from shooting.

“Guns? Bows?”

Yevgeny squints at him, unsure if he’s trying to make a joke. He’s always been bad at jokes, and he’s thankful that for the most part he’s been spared them.

“Don’t know why I got my hopes up. Come on,” Clint says, pushing himself to his feet and heading to the door.

Yevgeny is slow to follow, but eventually he does, standing up and trailing behind Clint as they go.


	22. Chapter 22

The woman is lingering in the hall outside, and Yevgeny keeps his eyes down as he follows Clint.

“Where exactly are you taking him?” Natasha asks. He doesn’t have to look up to know that she’s talking to Clint, and he keeps his mouth shut.

“The range.”

“And you’re going to give him a gun?”

“I don’t see why not.”

The woman makes a noise that makes it obvious that she thinks it’s a truly terrible idea.

“If he was going to kill me, he probably already would have. Even if the serum isn’t as good as caps, he’s still strong and fast. He’s also probably been training longer than I have, which is impressive, because I’m probably twice as old as he is.”

“So you’re going to give him a gun?”

He doesn’t really think that anything he could possibly say would change the discussion they’re having. Even if he said that he didn’t plan to shoot Clint, it isn’t as if they were likely to believe that.

“Just a small one,” Clint says with a little laugh, pulling open a door.

The range is large. Not as large as some of the ones he’s seen, but a good size. Better for small arms than anything else.

“What can you shoot? Need anything specific?”

He shakes his head. He can shoot anything. HYDRA had it’s own choice of weapons, but he was trained to be able to take and use anything. Being able to turn the enemy’s weapons against them was a valued skill.

The woman makes a noise of distaste as Clint vanishes into a side room, authenticating with a retinal scan. Yevgeny wonders if it waits for a blink, the way a secure one will. If not, a removed eyeball will work just as well.

He watches the doorway as Clint stays out of sight, watching the woman out of the corner of his eye. She’s obviously working up to say something, but she never does.

Clint returns with an M9, holding it out grip first.

“Can you disassemble? I’m not letting you on the range if you don’t have your safety down pat. No idea if they cover how not to shoot people on the range by accident in HYDRA school.

He knows how to disassemble. He sits down to have a flat surface and tears the gun apart.

It takes fifteen seconds, and he knows he’d get a kick to the head for going so slowly.

Clint whistles.

“Kid knows his stuff.”

“I could do it faster,” Natasha replies.

Clint vanishes back into the armory. When he returns, it’s with two AK-74s.

Yevgeny’s stomach does a flip. The AK-74 had been standard issue with him for almost three decades. He could draw the details of it from memory, and it feels good to have it in his hands again when Clint hands one over to him.

“If Nat thinks she can do it faster, than prove it.”

He counts them down.

Natasha takes hers apart in eighteen seconds. Passing score was twenty.

Yevgeny manages in sixteen.

“So you can smile,” Clint says, and Yevgeny twitches. He didn’t realize he was, and the smile is gone as quickly as it came on.

Clint just laughs, retrieving the AK-74. Yevgeny isn’t keen to give it up, but small arms would be better for a range anyway.

When Clint hands over a box of ammo, his stomach does another flip.

“Gun safety,” Clint repeats, refusing to let go of the box. “If I see you doing one thing wrong--finger on the trigger when not firing, pointing it at someone even while unloaded--you aren’t touching a gun again until the day I die.”

Yevgeny nods, and Clint finally releases the box.

He disassembles the M9 again just to check, only loading it once he’s fully reassembled it. He’s careful--twice as careful as he’d normally be--to make sure that Clint has nothing to complain about.

He’s sure that the woman is going to have words with Clint over giving him a gun, but when he raises the gun and fires the first time--hitting the target at the end of the lane dead center--Yevgeny feels at home.

This was what he was meant to do. This, not being confined to a room to wait for the Winter Soldier to need handling.

He was meant to fight.

Eventually, he runs out of bullets. Clint compliments him on his shooting accuracy, and ends up pulling out, of all things, a bow. He’s good with the bow, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a bow.

Yevgeny decides it must be his hobby.

He strips the gun down and cleans it meticulously. He wants to be allowed back to the range, and he doubts he’ll be allowed back if he turns in shoddy equipment.

“Apparently HYDRA knows how to clean a gun,” Clint says, leaning over to watch him work.

Yevgeny doesn’t reply. When he’s done cleaning and reassembling, he hands the gun back to Clint, grip first.

The woman stays by the wall, watching them work.

Clint returns everything to the room--the armory, he guesses, even if he can’t see inside--and then returns.

“Well, that went well. And I didn’t even get shot,” Clint says, giving Natasha a pointed look.

Yevgeny keeps his eyes down.

In truth, he doesn’t know what Clint is supposed to be. HYDRA had no equal to him. He’s not a handler. He’s not a fellow soldier. The closest equivalent would be one of his fellow clones, but they’ve been gone long enough that Yevgeny isn’t clear if he’s imagining it.

“Let's get back,” Clint says, stepping into the hallway.

“You did well,” comes the woman’s voice, sending a shiver down Yevgeny’s spine.

Even so, he can’t deny it feels good to be told it.


	23. Chapter 23

Clint takes him to the range often. It calms his nerves, and even if the woman isn’t happy with it, no one else protests. The general consensus seems to be that if he was going to murder them all, he’d have done it already.

Yevgeny can’t quite agree, but he decides that voicing his disagreement would be counter productive.

They both make more of an effort to keep him out of his room. His schedule shifts, becomes more malleable. As long as he goes to the range at least every other day, Yevgeny doesn’t really care.

He sees people in bits and pieces. The doctor who takes his blood and talks excitedly about the counterfeit serum running in his veins. The man who caught him in the first place who constantly tries to make smalltalk that he has no intention of returning. The man with the beard, who seems to go out of the way to avoid Yevgeny.

And his original.

His original is a strange and confusing case. He doesn’t talk to Yevgeny. He barely acknowledges him, beyond hurt looks across the room. If Yevgeny enters a room, he finds an excuse to leave.

Eventually, the woman sits him down to explain.

“We’re still looking for James Barnes. The one you’d know as the asset.”

Yevgeny thinks he’s managed to keep himself from flinching, but he can’t be sure.

“Steve is still looking for him. He thinks you might be able to help.”

There’s no further explanation, and Yevgeny shakes his head. He doesn’t know where the asset might be. He doesn’t have any hints or clues.

The less he thinks about the asset, the better.

He has new clothes. Clint gives him a pen and a notebook to write in, and tells him he can write anything he wants.

He doesn’t write anything, but he keeps the notebook with him just in case. He gets by the way he always has, with gestures and nods. With Clint, things come easier. Clint picks up his signs, teaching Yevgeny ones of his own.

He doesn't think the signs will ever work with anyone else, but with Clint it’s enough, their own bastardized hybrid language.

After two months, Clint takes him out. It’s the first time he’s left the building since he arrived, and he finds himself baffled when he ends up in a nice restaurant. Clint gets them a booth.

The food is delicious, and Yevgeny eats his fill.

Even so, he doesn’t talk about himself. He doesn’t ask questions. His past remains as closed to Clint as it is to anyone else.

Clint, to his credit, doesn’t ask. He doesn’t drag his secrets out in the open, doesn’t try and figure out what makes him tick. He lets Yevgeny function. He answers the few questions Yevgeny thinks to ask.

He doesn’t ask many.

He learns, eventually, that Clint is a sniper too, even if he claims (repeatedly, despite Yevgeny’s confusion) that he uses a bow for it. The entire idea seems ridiculous, but he’s certainly accurate enough.

Eventually Yevgeny believes him... mostly.


	24. Chapter 24

Eventually, things fall apart.

The day is normal. There is no disaster, no panic.

Then his original finds him.

He’s better than he was when he first arrived, and he holds his ground when his original calls out to him, telling him to wait.

He waits. Clint would want him to wait, and his handler--Natasha--would want him to wait too.

His original is supposed to be a friend, even if he doesn’t always accept it.

“I need to talk to you,” Steve says, his face grim. Yevgeny expects the worst.

He follows his original out of the hallway and into a private room, where he finds Sam. He likes Sam well enough, although he isn’t sure where he stands. He doesn’t hold it against him that Sam literally snatched him off the streets, although he does spend more time than he’d ever admit wondering just what Sam is. He’s not quite part of the group that HYDRA would have branded their enemies, but he’s not _not_  part of the group either.

He’s also bleeding from a long, deep cut in his upper arm. He’s covered it in bandages, but even at a distance Yevgeny can tell that it’s going to need stitches.

Steve waits until he’s closed the door to start talking. Even if neither Clint nor the woman ever sat him down to explicitly spell things out for him, he knows well enough what he’s _not_  supposed to do in a room with two men. He knows that would be bad. It would be a thing HYDRA would do, and he’s not HYDRA.

Steve doesn’t seem to notice his discomfort.

“We need to know how to bring Bucky in.”

Yevgeny doesn’t follow.

“Barnes. James Barnes. The Asset,” Steve clarifies.

Yevgeny’s discomfort multiplies.

“For the record, this hurts like hell, so let's pick up the pace. If I go to the hospital, they’re going to want to know who managed to stab me, and if anyone else finds out, Stark’s going to want in.”

Yevgeny doesn’t know which one Stark is, but the name is familiar to him.

“Well, he’s not coming,” Steve says, turning back to Yevgeny.

“If you were his handler, you’d know how to get him to come in, right? Sam thought he’d come back willingly, but the knife disproved that theory. He’s too skittish to come in, and he needs to--he needs help.”

Yevgeny isn’t sure he agrees. The Asset needs a lot of things, but as far as he’s concerned a bullet to the brain would be the most merciful.

The Asset is damaged. He was damaged from the moment he was made, literally created broken. He’s pieces of a vase glued back together to try and hold water. The whole reason Yevgeny was created was in hopes that he’d be able to hold that vase together.

Steve turns out not to be as bad at reading him as Yevgeny thinks. He stops, stooping down and resting his hand on Yevgeny’s shoulder.

He does his best not to flinch.

“I know this is hard. I know there’s probably a lot of bad blood between the two of you. But Bucky needs help, and he’s not going to get it running around on the streets. If he stays out there too much longer, someone else is going to find him. HYDRA, someone he hurt in the past--someone who wants bad things from him. He broke away from HYDRA like you did, and I think if you helped him, we might be able to get him back to safety.”

It’s the first he’s heard that the Asset isn’t with HYDRA. The idea of it--of something as broken and dedicated as the Asset defecting--is absurd, like his original has just declared that they’re standing on the surface of the sun.

The Asset doesn’t have it in him to defect. The Asset might have gone rogue, but Yevgeny doubts he has enough of a mind left to make a conscious choice to leave HYDRA.

Steve squeezes his shoulder.

“Please.”

He doesn’t say yes because Steve wants him to. He says yes because doing so would make him _useful_. Because if he gets the Asset back, he’ll have done them a service, and maybe they won’t throw him away.

He mimes cocking a gun, and Steve squints.

“He wants a gun,” clarifies Sam. “What did I say about hurrying it up? This is going to be really embarrassing if I pass out from blood loss before you leave.”

Sam sighs.

“I’ll meet you at the entrance, alright?” He says, and Yevgeny nods.

He goes to get his jacket first, tucking the notebook he got from Clint into his pocket.


	25. Chapter 25

Steve takes him to the bad part of town, and Yevgeny doesn’t pretend to be surprised. He knows where would be best to hide, although he’s surprised to find the Asset so close at hand.

It’s probably not a coincidence.

He has an M9, which he tucks neatly away. He’s sure he looks older, even if it’s only been a few months. He hopes he doesn’t look _too_  much older.

If he’s too old, it might not work.

There’s not a plan, really. He knows he has to find the Asset. Finding the Asset is really as far as it goes. The Asset shouldn’t be capable of hurting him. The Asset should follow his orders.

In theory. Or at least that was how it went before the Asset defected.

He turns to Steve and starts to talk--mouthing the words even without sound--but Steve interrupts him.

“I know Clint knows that stuff, but I don’t read lips,” he says, digging out a few pieces of paper and a pencil, which he offers up.

Yevgeny grunts and uses a wall as a flat surface, scribbling out a message.

Steve squints at it.

Yevgeny needs room. He doesn’t want Steve interfering. The very last thing he needs is to confuse the Asset.

In fact, if Steve would just _leave_ , that would be absolutely ideal, and his very first objective is to give the man the slip and find the Asset on his own.

He gets his chance sooner than he expects.

They’re almost to where Sam lose sight of him when Yevgeny simply falls back, letting Steve keep walking. He’s around the corner and out of sight before the other man even notices, scrambling up a fire escape. The roofs have always been the best place for him, and the faulty serum flowing through his veins makes escape easy. He can clear the alleys easily, darting from roof to roof.

Steve won’t catch up. He needs to find the Asset.

It’s harder than he expected. He finds the three places he’d have placed them if he’d been sent out with the Asset and checks each one thoroughly. There’s no sign of him, which rules out the possibility of him being on a mission.

Random chance? Unlikely.

He goes to ground level and follows the signs. It’s easy enough for him to find the nearest homeless encampment, even if his clothes are too good to blend in.

The city isn’t the city he lived in, but it’s close enough.

He pulls out the notebook that Clint gave him and sketches out a quick sketch. He’s not an artist by any means, but he knows the basics, and he flashes it around until someone nods, pointing him in the right direction.

Even if he isn’t any longer, they recognize the tired boy with the slumped posture as one of their own.

Eventually he finds the place he was sent to, an old warehouse. It’s the sort of place that he was taught to hide once, long long ago during urban survival training.

He doesn’t want to see the Asset, he decides. Even if he hasn’t seen the man in years, he’s still a fresh wound, one that might never close.

He steps into the building anyway.

It’s dark and dingy, and he works his way through it methodically, his gun in his hand. He isn’t afraid of the Asset so much as he is wary of whatever else might be in the building.

Something springs at him from the darkness and he spins, slamming his elbow into the figure’s ribs.

The fact that the figure barely even _grunts_  gives it away.

But he can’t shout a command. In the darkness he can’t communicate properly, and he goes down hard, the air knocked out of him when he hits the ground.

He keeps a hold on his gun, twisting his arm up to try and get a shot off. The Asset can take the damage--he can’t. If the Asset decides to pound his face in, especially with his metal arm, there’s not going to be much he can do.

The Asset doesn’t, but he does reach down, squeezing at Yevgeny’s wrist until he chokes from the pain and is forced to release the gun.

The Asset has him pinned, and Yevgeny’s nostril flair. Too close. Too familiar, too many times. He opens his mouth to say something, to order him off, but no sound comes out.

HYDRA’s doomed him.

“I just - I just want to be left alone,” a voice says, and even in such close proximity it takes him a moment to understand that it’s the Asset speaking.

Something is wrong. The voice--the base level anyway--is the same, but everything else is wrong. The Asset doesn’t sound like that. The Asset doesn’t speak English, the language of the enemy. The Asset doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t stutter.

Something is very, very wrong.

Yevgeny lets out a choked wheeze, reaching up with his free hand to grab at the collar of the Asset’s shirt. It’s filthy, nothing like the uniform he wore, but it gives him leverage he wouldn’t have had otherwise.

He hauls the Asset down, desperate to close the space between them. He needs the Asset to recognize him before he kills him.

His gamble works, and the Asset abruptly recoils, releasing his hand immediately. The man buries his face in his hands, letting out a desperate, pathetic keening noise.

“No no no no no,” he repeats, over and over again, an endless litany.

Yevgeny has done this before. He’s done it a thousand times, knows what to do even though his ribs are aching from the weight, even though his wrist is screaming from the pain of being crushed under the Asset’s grip.

He grabs the Assets hair as he pushes himself to his feet, twisting the man’s head up. He has to look at him. He has to look at him for it to work. If he’s taller that’s better, but the Asset has to _look_.

The Asset looks.

It isn’t right--his eyes look all wrong--but it’s enough.

The Asset goes slack, kneeling on the floor and staring up at him.

Yevgeny pants, rubbing at his wrist and telling himself to work through the pain. He’s had worse. He’s had worse a lot of times.

The Asset twitches, his entire body seeming to convulse as he breaks eye contact, letting out a whine.

Yevgeny holds onto his hair, twisting his head back up.

 _Remain still_ , he mouths.

He can tell that the Asset is watching his mouth, and his entire body twitches again, straining against himself.

He’s fighting the conditioning, Yevgeny realizes, but it’s not enough. He’s tearing himself apart.

He does what he was told to do. He expects to feel horrified, and instead he simply feels relaxed. This was what he was meant to do. It was what he was _made_  to do.

He doesn’t let go of the Assets hair, lowering himself down to straddle the Asset’s hips so the man is only inches away from his face. He can’t miss what he says, even if his body keeps twitching under him.

 _You remember me_ , Yevgeny mouths. _Remember your place_.

A part of him--the part that Clint’s been so carefully nurturing--wonders if he’s doing the wrong thing. Wonders if he should be trying to bring him back through talking and negotiation rather than digging up his old conditioning. 

Then he remembers the sight of Sam’s arm and decides that conditioning will have to do.

The Asset looks even more tired than he did the last time Yevgeny saw him. The years apart have not been kind, and he wonders--not for the last time--just what happened.

He can find out later.

“You aren’t real,” the Asset mumbles underneath him, still trying to turn his face away.

 _You remember this_ , Yevgeny mouths. _You remember me_.

He releases the assets hair, pressing a hand to each side of his face, and holds him still.

 _Mission report, soldier_ _,_ he mouths. He needs to do it. Needs to clear the old one so he can start the new one. He doesn’t even know what the old mission was.

“ _Mission failure. Unable to remove target_ ,” the Asset says, his voice becoming more mechanical, more familiar to Yevgeny. The Russian is familiar.

This is the Asset he remembers, pressed so close that he’s all he can see. This is the one that haunts him, staring up at his face with blind adoration.

Because Yevgeny is a clone of the Asset’s closest friend, and HYDRA preyed on that familiarity.

 _Status?_  He mouths.

The Asset shudders one last time, and then blinks.

He’s blank again.

“ _Functional._ ”

Yevgeny lets out a breath, allowing himself to relax. He has control.

_You have a new mission, Soldier._

The Asset nods, waiting for orders.


	26. Chapter 26

Getting back requires far more effort than getting in does.

Even if he wanted to call his original, to let him know that the mission is over, there’s three major problems. One--he doesn’t have a cellphone. Two--the age of payphones is long over.

Three--talking on the phone doesn’t play well with being mute.

No amount of mouthing words or making signals is going to work over a phone, which greatly limits his options.

He takes to the roofs to cut across town, the Asset a silent shadow behind him.

It’s pleasant to think that he hasn’t lost his touch, because even though he’s been off the street for ages--and out of mission mode even longer--he still has no trouble keeping pace with the Asset.

Within fifteen minutes they’ve crossed most of the city, and Yevgeny finds himself once more presented with the problem of getting inside.

He can’t just walk in. He has no ID, nothing that will let him access the building. Even if he _could_  just walk in the front door, trying to deal with building security--who might not even be aware of his existence for all he knows--would be a truly awful idea.

Yevgeny compromises.

He finds a cellphone--unattended in someone’s pocket--and an empty alley, tucking himself and the Asset out of sight.

Then, he texts Clint.

_I need you to come pick me up. I’m in the alley behind Timothy’s. -6_

He feels oddly proud of himself for not fat fingering the message, but it does take him a while to get it out. He’s only used a cellphone a few times in his life.

Clint doesn’t respond right away, and when he does Yevgeny can’t help but snort.

_We’re going to have a lot to talk about. Give the phone back._

Yevgeny does, more or less, leaving the Asset in the alley to hand the phone over to the restaurant’s staff, claiming it was left on a table outside. He erases the texts, not particularly concerned by the thought of someone recovering them later. There’s not much to find, and he kept it that way intentionally.

He isn’t gone for more than a minute, but even still it makes him wary to be away from the Asset so long.

He’s still waiting in the alley when he returns, and Yevgeny double checks him, grabbing his face again.

 _Status?_  He mouths.

“ _Functional_ ,” the Asset replies. There’s no pause this time around, a fact that sends relief flooding through him.

He scoots the Asset around the corner, and stands a bit in front of him so he can watch the alley.

The building where he’s been staying--whose name was never mentioned to him--is about five minutes away.

Clint gets there in three.

It’s obvious immediately that he’s been running. It’s _also_  obvious that he’s upset, because his face twists as he starts down the alley, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I want to say that _you_  are in trouble for sneaking out, only I doubt you went out alone. Who took you out?”

The idea of being in trouble doesn’t sit well with Yevgeny, but he simply reminds himself that Clint wasn’t involved in the original briefing--he has no idea what Yevgeny was doing out.

 _My original_ , he mouths.

Clint’s frown deepens.

“Steve’s going to have hell to pay. Is he not even here?”

Yevgeny shakes his head, trying to figure out the best possible way to bring up the asset standing two feet to his left, just out of sight.

At the moment, he’s happy he’s mute. It means the Asset has no idea what he’s saying unless he faces him, and there’s no risk of him misinterpreting Yevgeny’s words.

“How did you even get my number?”

It’s Yevgeny’s turn to snort, fixing Clint with a firm stare.

 _Watched the woman type it in_.

He was always good at memorizing numbers, after all.

But smalltalk has to wait. He has more important things to do.

 _Mission completed,_ he signs, not even bothering to mouth the words. It’s easier to put mission reports into signs, and Clint knows enough of them to understand. _Returning to base._

He flicks his eyes to the left, and Clint goes stiff, staring at the wall. There can’t be more than six feet between him and the Asset, and Yevgeny hopes he isn’t going to have to explain the whole thing.

“I am going to _murder_ Steve,” Clint mumbles. “Is he going to come quietly if we go back to the base.”

Yevgeny nods, signalling that the Asset is in bodyguard mode. As long as no one tries to harm _him_ , he’ll simply follow docilely behind.

Clint doesn’t look at all happy, but he nods anyway, fishing his phone out and starting down the alley back towards the street, signalling over his shoulder for Yevgeny to follow him.

Yevgeny does, and the Asset goes with him.

He signals for the Asset to hide his arm, and the man does automatically, hiding the metal of his hand in his pocket of his jacket and flipping the hood up.

Clint doesn’t glance behind him, and Yevgeny feels a surge of happiness at that. Clint trusts him enough not to need to check where he is.

They don’t go in the front entrance, instead looping around the back of the building. Yevgeny’s never seen this entrance before, but he’s snuck into enough buildings to recognize a service entrance when he sees one.

In truth, he expects to see Natasha. It’s obvious Clint called someone, and if Clint was going to call _anyone_ , why not her? But when they arrive, it isn’t Natasha waiting--it’s Bruce, the man from the lab.

He looks pale as he scans across them, eyes settling on the Asset, but opens the door anyway as they slide in.

“Up to the lab,” he says, staring at the stairs for a moment before letting out a sigh and smacking the elevator call button.

“How long do we have before Tony...?” Clint asks, and Bruce lets out another sigh.

“He probably already knows, but he should be smart enough to simply observe for now.”

There are dynamics in play that Yevgeny’s only seen the tip of.

Things start to go wrong in the elevator. The Asset makes a sound, a confused whimpering noise, and shakes his head.

They’re too close to the goal for him to lose him now, and Yevgeny turns, grabbing the sides of the Assets face again, deciding against pressing him to the floor. He’s more receptive if he’s on the floor, but it shouldn’t be hard to get him back under control.

 _Status_ , he mouths.

The Asset twitches again, going still.

“ _Functional. Programming: damaged. Requiring recalibration.”_

The fact that he can identify his own programming as faulty is both new and alarming.

 _We’ll take you for recalibration, then,_  he mouths. _Mission first. Focus on your mission._

The Asset stares down at him with blank eyes, then nods.

The elevator dings as the door opens, and Bruce is out of it as fast as he can, heading straight for a row of cupboards.

Yevgeny’s been in the lab before and knows the basics, but he genuinely has no idea what the plan is, so he lingers by the elevator.

“Get him to lie down in the chair,” Bruce calls over his shoulder. “Like when I took your blood samples.”

Yevgeny nods out of sheer instinct, even though Bruce isn’t looking at him, and turns back to the Asset. He doesn’t have to mouth it. The signals for ‘go there’ and ‘lie down’ come easily, and the Asset seems to know exactly what to do.

He’s done it before, after all, even if that was a different place at a different time.

Watching the Asset lie down does uncomfortable things to his stomach. It’s familiar to the Asset, but it’s also familiar to him.

He gives Bruce space to work, staying by the entrance to the lab.

Bruce pulls out a small auto injector, pressing it to the Assets shoulder and pressing the button. Even across the room Yevgeny can hear the click as it goes off, and as he watches the Asset twitches and goes stiller, his eyes half lidded.

“You’re going to want to double dose, the same way you would with Steve,” Clint says.

“Steevi,” the Asset mumbles, the word a mangled mix of the Russian and English pronunciations.

Bruce does as Clint suggests, grabbing a second one and pressing down.

The Asset is out like a light.

Bruce doesn’t talk as he grabs more supplies, stringing up tubes and sliding needles into veins.

He only steps back when he’s done, letting out a loud sigh of relief.

“He’s out. He’ll stay out, at least for a few more hours, and I’ve got stuff set up to monitor him,” Bruce explains.

“I am going to _murder_  Steve,” Clint says again.


	27. Chapter 27

The elevator dings open the moment Clint says it, revealing not just Natasha, but Tony as well.

“Well, isn’t this peachy,” Tony says, striding into the room to hover over the sleeping Asset. “And after all those lectures about doing the right thing, Steve sneaks off under our noses to go find his buddy.”

The woman gets right to business, scanning the room before glancing down at Yevgeny.

“ _Where is Sam?”_ she says.

Hearing the voice--the handler voice--makes Yevgeny go rigid, and he’s signing out that he went to a medic before it hits him that Natasha only knows a fraction of the signs that he and Clint does.

“In the hospital, apparently,” Clint interprets, saving Yevgeny from his own hurry. Yevgeny drops his eyes down to the floor, suddenly nervous.

He brought the Asset back--wasn’t that what they wanted?

Clint seems to pick up on his confusion, because he ignores the Asset everyone else is crowing around, moving over to bend down in front of Yevgeny so they’re on eye level.

“Yevgeny,” he says, and Yevgeny feels a shiver go down his spine. “Right now people are upset, but they aren’t upset at you. You did well. You got Barnes and yourself both back in one piece, even though the mission conditions were less than ideal. Right now people are very mad at _Steve_ , because he took you and went off on an unsanctioned mission.”

Yevgeny can understand that clearly enough, and he nods before withdrawing the M9 from where he’s hidden it away, holding it out grip first for Clint to take.

Clint stares down at it for a second before mumbling that he’s _really_  going to kill Steve, reaching out to take it away.

“Well, now that  _that's_  over with,” Tony says, holding a pair of thin metal plies and some kind of metal rod that Yevgeny is unfamiliar with. “JARVIS! Call Steve and put him on speaker for the room, would you?”

Yevgeny jumps when the ceiling answers back in an oddly British accent.

“Calling Captain Rogers. Should I provide only your voice to him, or everyone, sir?”

Tony seems to take a moment to consider before shrugging. 

“Everyone. I wouldn’t want to rob poor Steve of the string of profanity that Clint’s going to drop on him.”

There’s a click and his original’s voice abruptly comes from the ceiling.

“Rogers.”

“You are in _so_  much shit,” Tony says, not bothering to hide the laugh in his voice.

His original groans, and Clint cuts in.

“What the fuck were you _thinking_? Taking him out of the building on a joyride? Not telling us? Nevermind that Sam’s in the hospital now. Do you even _understand_  how badly this could have gone?”

“I assume that means he made it back in one piece?” His original says.

Tony raps his knuckles against the metal of the Asset’s arm, and the sound is both loud and clear as day.

“And he brought a present back.”

Steve doesn’t reply right away. Even if he’s not actually there, Clint’s glaring up at the ceiling as if he is.

“I’m on my way back,” he finally says, and then hangs up.

“Would you like me to report when Captain Rogers returns?” The vaguely British voice asks, and Tony agrees before turning his attention back to the metal arm before him.

“We should go,” Clint says, lightly tapping Yevgeny’s shoulder. He’s learned not to grab it at least, but he’s still a bit too touchy for Yevgeny’s taste.

Yevgeny doesn’t take his eyes off the Asset, still sleeping peacefully on the table.

“Hey!” Tony calls when Clint starts steering him out of the room. “Hold on. Before you go anywhere, do you know anything about the internals?” Tony asks, obviously staring at him as he taps the metal with the long metal pick he’s holding.

Yevgeny shakes his head. The techs did their own work, and aside from seeing the Asset without his arm a few times, he doesn’t know anything about it.

Tony shrugs it off, turning away without another word.

* * *

 

“You did good,” Clint says as he guides him through the hallways back to his room. “Even if you’re probably feeling upset.”

Yevgeny really isn’t feeling upset. He feels fine, if a bit confused. He had expected--had _really_  expected--to be upset seeing the Asset again.

He isn’t. He doesn’t really feel anything at all. He isn’t the one that Assets really looking for, and before long Steve will come back, the Asset will recognize him, and everything will go back to how it was.

“But I want to know how you’re doing,” Clint finally says, stopping abruptly outside Yevgeny’s room.

The room is plain and mostly empty, but it’s _his_  room, and he feels safe there.

He signals _okay_ , but Clint isn’t going to let him go that easily.

“I’m not messing around here, alright? I mean it. You just went off--by yourself, thanks to the idiot--and brought Barnes back alone. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if you’re okay, physically or mentally. I need to know that you’re _actually_  okay, not just using that signal to mean that you’re not bleeding out, alright?”

Yevgeny signals that he’s okay again, and Clint lets out a sigh, pulling back.

He feels that he’s disappointed Clint somehow, but it’s simply the truth. He’s fine. He’s not bothered by the Asset--not really--beyond a vague sense of confusion.

Clint lets him go back into his room.

Yevgeny empties his pockets onto the little desk that’s been added to the room, hanging up his jacket on the edge before sliding back into bed, dragging the sheets around him.

He’s still not used to how soft they are, but lying down gives him the chance to think about things, to process all the stuff he spent the day pushing back.

After a moment, he decides it’s better not to think. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.


	28. Chapter 28

Natasha’s waiting for him when he gets back, her arms crossed over her chest.

She is going to have _words_  with Steve, whether he wants to hear them or not.

She doesn’t even bother to feign surprise when he comes in through the back, but she catches him before he makes it to the elevator.

“We need to talk,” she says, and his head snaps up. His confusion is replaced almost immediately by annoyance. Steve has always worn his heart on his sleeve, and now is no exception.

“I want to go see Bucky,” he says simply, trying to dodge around her.

Natasha steps smoothly in front of him, staring up at him. He has almost a foot on her, but she doesn’t waver.

Steve stares her down for several long moments, and then turns away.

“Fine. We can talk. Then I’m going to go see him.”

Natasha steps into the elevator, and Steve follows.

She has no illusions about privacy. At an absolute minimum, JARVIS is recording them. Most likely Tony’s watching live as well. Maybe Bruce.

If she’s lucky, Clint _isn’t_  watching, because he’s too busy keeping an eye on Yevgeny.

The elevator dings, letting them off into the common area, and Nat goes to take a seat at the table.

“Sit,” she says firmly, watching him frown but eventually comply, taking the seat opposite her.

“I am not your mother,” she starts. “I am not your boss, or your handler. I am your _friend_. I am supposed to be your ally. That’s why we’re having this conversation--because if you continue down this path, we aren’t going to be either.”

Her tone is terse and to the point, and she doesn’t stop long enough to let Steve get a word in. She doesn’t want him to talk right then. _She’s_  going to talk, and then he can think about things, and _then_  he can talk.

He lost the right to get a word in edgewise when he walked out the front door with Yevgeny.

“And I _know_  Bucky is your friend, so please don’t waste either of our time by reminding me of that. I _know_  he’s your friend, and I _know_  he’s a victim, but he isn’t the only victim. There are _hundreds_  of people that HYDRA has victimized over the years, and your single minded focus on _one_  is going to get the others killed.”

She doubts Steve’s ever had anyone sit down and explain the basics of victimization theory, but someone certainly sat _her_  down and explained it.

Fury had insisted, and she thanks him every day for it.

“Yevgeny _looks_ alright. He looks functional. He goes through his days without issue. He eats with us. He goes to the range with Clint. He can hold a conversation, even if he doesn’t talk. But he’s not _better_. He isn’t _okay_ any more than Barnes is. You don’t get over two decades of indoctrination in a month, even if he was strong enough to break away on his own.”

Steve opens his mouth to reply, and Natasha fixes him with a harsh enough glare that he thinks better of it and closes his mouth.

“When he leaves the building with Clint, he does so with me on hand in case anything goes wrong. We have a dynamic. I am the handler, the steady part of his old life that he can look back to. Clint is his new life, a new position that has no parallel within HYDRA. If you jerk someone away from the life they had, they just cling to it that much more. So it’s still there, it’s just _different_.”

Natasha has always been good at controlling her anger, but even still it’s still there, a harsh edge to her words.

“You pushed him back under. Even if he wasn’t physically harmed, you pushed him right back into mission mode. You gave him a _gun_  while he was in mission mode. He would have absolutely, without question, shot anyone who got in his way. That was what he did. That was what he’ll still do. If someone had been with Barnes, he’d have simply shot them and taken Barnes back.”

Steve’s face doesn’t look as angry and argumentative as it did, so she knows it’s working. She can see him breaking down, the guilt building up as she hammers in just how firmly he fucked up.

“Getting Barnes back _physically_  isn’t enough. Yevgeny got him back _physically,_ but he regressed him _mentally_. You’ve likely undone a huge portion of Barnes’s break from HYDRA, because now he’s right back in waiting-for-orders mode. If we’d known Barnes was here, I would have taken Yevgeny and gone to one of Stark’s many, many summer homes. I’d have put as much distance between the two of them as possible, and then I’d have _slowly_  reintroduced the two to each other once they were both mentally well enough for that. You have _ruined_  that. It is now all but impossible to separate them, because in all likelihood Barnes will become upset and agitated when he’s separated from his handler. The handler he had _forgotten_  before you decided that they should interact with each other.”

Steve squirms in his seat, and Natasha goes in for the kill.

“You are going to go upstairs and see Barnes. Then you are going to go find Clint, you are going to apologize to Yevgeny for putting him in that position, and then you are going to listen to what we have to stay, and you’re going to stop this entire self destructive quest. If you want to help Barnes, you can do so by listening to the people who _actually_  know what they’re talking about.”

She expects Steve to argue--just a bit--but he doesn’t. He simply nods dully, his shoulders square. His body language is defeated, not defensive, which she takes as a victory.

She doesn’t rub it in.

“Go see Barnes,” she repeats, standing up and leaving him behind.

He doesn’t stand up, even as she gets into the elevator.


	29. Chapter 29

Tony supposes he should be angry. Rogers _has_  gone off and done exactly what he was told _not_ to do, after all.

But it’s very hard to be angry when he’s staring at an extremely sophisticated piece of HYDRA tech, his for the taking.

“You think the kid’s doing okay?” Bruce asks, handing him a thin wire to poke around with.

“Who?” Tony asks, well aware who he’s talking about. He doesn’t particularly want to talk about Nat’s pet project. He doesn’t particularly care. HYDRA are the bad guys, problem solved, and he’s not terribly interested in digging around through the years of trauma the kid’s suffered.

That’s Natasha’s field, not his. If another clone of Steve shows up in a suit or armor, or with a mechanical spine fused to him, _then_  he’ll care.

He realizes that Bruce is staring at him, and Tony lets out an exaggerated sigh.

“You mean Eugene?”

Even out of the corner of his eye, Tony can see the face that Bruce makes.

“Eugene? Your Russian isn’t _that_  bad, Tony.”

“That’s his name. Yevgeny. Eugene. Just like Anton is Anthony, or Natasha is Natasha.”

Bruce lets out a tiny groan.

“His name is Yevgeny, just call him that. Don’t confuse the poor kid more.”

Tony scowls at him, sticking out his hand for Bruce to put more tools in. He doesn’t even prompt the ones he wants, but Bruce hands them over just the same.

“Don’t call him a kid, then. He was probably born before I was. Before you were. He’s probably twenty. He just _looks_ like a kid because Steve was so small that a strong wind could have knocked him over.”

“He acts like a kid. He’s probably never seen a movie. That was what we were supposed to be doing tonight, you realize? Watching a movie as a team.”

“And now we’re taking apart this gorgeous piece of technology,” Tony muses.

He knows which one he prefers.

“He’s lucky he hasn’t died from heavy metal poisoning,” Bruce complains as Tony finally manages to pop a panel off the arm, squinting down at the inner workings. “I don’t get why he hasn’t regenerated the arm, though. He has the serum, or at least something close enough to it. His body should have rejected the arm already.”

Tony squints, his tongue poking out of his mouth as he slides the pick inside, trying to get it to catch. He can see the access panel, but he can’t figure out a way to open it from the outside. Probably there’s a remote, but he’ll have to make do without it.

“Who knows? I’m not a doctor. You’re not a doctor. And he probably won’t be seeing a doctor for a good long while because who knows what kind of a mess he’ll be in when he wakes up.”

“Maybe it’s the cauterization. If they fixed the metal arm on, then cauterized the wound, it might have tricked his body into not healing. Maybe it’s something about the metal itself,” Bruce continues.

“Don’t care. The only thing I care about right now is getting this thing off so I can take it apart.”

Bruce lets out a sigh, reaching over to pluck the pick from Tony’s hands and scooting the man out of the way.

He pops the latch easily, reaching up to pull open the panel before presenting the pick back to Tony.

“Easy,” he insisted.

Tony scowled at him in return, peeking inside the panel and letting out a whistle.

“They must have upgraded it over time. There’s no way this is all tech from the fifties. It’s a piecemeal mess.”

“Can you get it off?”

Tony stared down at it for a long moment before shrugging.

“I’d never say _no_ , but it’s not all coming off. Part of it is literally fused to his skin, you’d need actual surgery to get that off.”

“It should come off anyway, it can’t be healthy to have that attached. From where it dead ends, it probably attaches in his shoulder socket the way an arm would.”

“Don’t care,” Tony repeated, pressing his fingers carefully into the panel. “Grab the wrist, I’m going to pull it off.”

The process of getting the arm off turns out not to be easy. It requires a lot of twisting and pulling, with only the reassurance that neither of them has the strength to actually buckle the metal to guide them.

And then, with a loud pop, the arm comes off.

Bruce goes over, and Tony very nearly follows him, the metal arm landing hard on Bruce’s chest as he let out a wheeze.

“I think I just broke a rib,” Bruce complains, shoving the arm off him to the floor.

It takes two of them to get the arm up onto the table.

“That thing has to weigh fifty pounds,” Bruce insists, squinting at where the arm is supposed to connect.

Tony doesn’t answer. He’s already in the process of flipping it so that it lies flat, whistling as he works.

Bruce glances back at him.

“Are you done already?”

“Yep!” Tony calls pleasantly. “I don’t really see the point in poking around on him. Call me when you want to rebuild the connection point, and then we’ll talk.”

Brainwashed super soldiers are not his field. Extremely complex mechanical arms _are_  his field, and he wastes no time in strapping it down to the table so that it doesn’t roll, unlocking the tables wheels and starting towards the elevator.

“Have fun!” He calls pleasantly over his shoulder.


	30. Chapter 30

It takes a _lot_  of effort not to punch Steve in the face when he shows up in front of Yevgeny’s room.

He has to remind himself that he would likely not be the first, which tempers his anger a bit. Nat always was better at punching.

“I assume Nat’s already kicked your ass and saved me the trouble?” Clint asks, folding his arms over his chest as he stares down Steve.

“And then some,” Steve mutters.

“Good.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Clint turns to check Yevgeny on the monitor. He’s not supposed to be sleeping--it’s not the right time--and he worries about the havoc the morning’s adventure is going to play on his schedule.

“Is he going to be alright?” Steve asks, and Clint resists the urge to say _he would be if not for you_.

“He’ll be fine. This is a setback, not a death warrant. He’ll figure things out as he goes. We’ll just need to sit him down for a talk about who he should be taking instructions from.”

He doesn’t bother to correct the implicit _not you_.

“We just need to get him back on schedule. Movie night can go on, people can poke around with Barnes, and we’ll do what we can to keep him from getting too thrown off by it.”

Even so, he knows things are going to get better before they get worse.

“He’s like a son to you,” Steve says, and Clint lets out a snort. He doubts Steve even _slightly_  suspects the truth--he probably thinks that Yevgeny is _the son Clint never got to have_ , rather than _the kid who reminds him of the son he has waiting back home_.

Yevgeny’s a lot older than Cooper, though. Maybe as his big brother.

He decides to let Steve draw his own conclusions.

“Let me make one thing clear, Steve. If you put _any_ of the blame on him--if you so much as _imply_  he might be at fault--I am going to find a very tall building and drop you off it.”

Steve holds up his hands.

“Message heard and received. I’ll be careful. When’s he going to be up?”

Clint spares a glance at the clock.

“Two minutes, if his schedule holds out.”

They wait the next two minutes in silence, and then, like clockwork, Yevgeny is up and out of bed. He seems momentarily disoriented that he doesn’t have to change, but in a moment he’s sitting on the bed, obviously waiting for someone to get him.

Clint fixes Steve with a hard stare.

“A _very_  tall building,” he reminds him, opening the door.

* * *

 

Yevgeny is expecting Clint, or maybe the woman. She seems to come around more when there’s been an issue, and everything that’s happened certainly qualifies as an _issue_.

Instead, he finds his original standing in the doorway, fidgeting in place.

His original holds a strange place in Yevgeny’s life. He’s certainly important, but beyond that he remains a mystery. He doesn’t know if his original is technically his superior. He doesn’t know if they’re supposed to be on the same level, or what.

He knows that his original is better than him though. The difference was obvious from the moment he first laid eyes on him. His original has a working serum. His original isn’t plagued by a myriad of health problems. His original is _strong_  in ways that he will never be.

Yevgeny decides that he hates his original. There is no handler to take that away from him, either. Not anymore.

He stares blankly at his original’s chest as the man clears his throat and starts to talk. He can understand him just fine--even if it is English--but he decides to simply ignore it as the man trips and stumbles over what he’s trying to say.

It’s an apology, Yevgeny supposes, but it doesn’t feel real. There’s no question in his mind that someone--the woman, Clint, maybe even Bruce--has forced him to say it.

It isn’t real.

He continues staring as the man continues for what seems like an impossibly long time, and then when the man finally lapses into silence, he nods.

It’s apparently the correct thing to do, because his original immediately excuses himself, practically fleeing the room.

Yevgeny smirks.

Clint pops his head in a few seconds later, scowling.

“That was mean. Guy’s practically kowtowing, and you didn’t pay attention at _all_ , did you?”

Clint apparently knows him pretty well.


	31. Chapter 31

Yevgeny isn’t surprised when both Natasha and Clint show up at the same time the following day. He’s been expecting as much--the Asset’s too close by for him to be left to sit.

Natasha is using her handler voice, which tells him that it’s business.

“ _Clint will be overseeing you. We plan to wake the Asset up,”_ the woman says quickly.

“It’s not really necessary, is it?” Clint mutters under his breath, sparing her a glance.

She drops the voice, reverting back to English.

Yevgeny wonders which one is her real voice.

“We can’t be too careful,” Natasha insists.

Yevgeny falls in between them as they head to the elevator, but there’s not much in the way of smalltalk on the way up. Clint doesn’t even speak again until they end up in a small observation room, overlooking where the Asset lies on a table. He’s in a hospital gown, but the fact that his arm is missing is immediately obvious.

“It’s two-way glass. We can see him, he can’t see us,” Clint clarifies, completely unnecessarily.

“He knows. HYDRA isn’t that sloppy,” Nat mutters.

Yevgeny’s seen rooms just like it before, and he slides up to the glass, staring at the Asset on the other side of the glass before glancing back to Clint.

He doesn’t even need to mouth anything--Clint knows what he wants to know.

“We’re going to wake him up. The end goal is... well, for him to be like you. Mostly free of his programming. If I had a say, you’d be back in your room, but it’s possible he’ll go nuts without a handler to talk him down, and we’re not sure Steve is going to work.”

Yevgeny narrows his eyes.

 _He won't_ , he mouths. He knows that much. Steve is not a handler, even if he’s the base from which all the clones were copied. Steve’s too old. He doesn’t speak Russian. He doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it.

Clint shrugs.

“Well, our options are try, or have Steve moping around for years because we didn’t let him try.”

Natasha shoots Clint a glare, which he grins at.

The door swings open and Tony and Bruce slide in. Bruce has a mug of coffee, and Tony looks like he just drank a gallon of the stuff.

Too perky, Yevgeny decides.

“Ahh, I see our little failsafe is up bright and early!” Tony declares with a pointed look in Yevgeny’s direction.

Far too perky.

“Where’s Steve?” Bruce asks, glancing around as if expecting him to pop out of a corner.

“Waiting in the wings,” Natasha clarifies. “He wants to be on hand. We’re going to wake him up, Steve is going to try and talk to him, and if anything goes wrong, Yevgeny is going to talk him back into submission.”

It’s a simple enough idea, but Yevgeny already knows how it’s going to go wrong. Seeing Steve--his original--is only going to agitate him. He’s supposed to have a handler there on wakeup.

“For the record,” Natasha says under her breath, and Yevgeny gets the impression she’s explicitly talking only to him and maybe Clint. “I’m aware this is stupid. But Steve needs to make his own mistakes before he’s going to let us help properly. Just be ready to talk him down, alright?”

Yevgeny nods. He can do that.

“That’ll go over well,” Clint mumbles under his breath.

In the room, the Asset stirs. He’s always been slow to wake, one of the many, many reasons why he sleeps so sparingly. His eyes open, staring at the ceiling unfocused.

A slower boot than usual, but considering the damage sustained to his programming, Yevgeny isn’t surprised.

He shoves his hands in his pockets, squeezing at the notebook he hides there.

It seems to take forever for the Asset to finally wake up enough to do anything at all.

“ _Mission status unclear_ ,” the Asset mumbles in slurred Russian. It occurs to Yevgeny that he was knocked out midway through--his mission is probably still set to guarding him.

His eyes still aren’t focused when Steve opens the door, closing it carefully behind him.

It occurs to Yevgeny that _not_  having him in the room is a bad idea. It isn’t as if he can yell at the Asset to get him to stop, after all.

His original is going to get hurt, and it’s going to be no one’s fault but his own.

“Buck,” Steve says, moving immediately towards where the Asset is lying. He’s tied down, strictly speaking, but Yevgeny doubts how well it’ll keep him down if he gets into a rage.

He doesn’t have his vocal cords anymore because of just one of those rages.

“Buck, it’s me. You’re safe now,” Steve insists.

The Asset seems to recognize that someone’s talking to him, but there’s no hint of recognition.

“ _Mission status unclear. Requesting authentication,”_  the Asset mumbles.

Yevgeny can’t see his Original’s face clearly, but he can see the way his shoulders tense. Things aren’t going the way he thought. This isn’t the happy reunion he was so obviously expecting.

Something dark and nasty coils in the pit of his stomach.

“It’s me,” Steve repeats. “Steve. Stevey. Your friend.” His tone is pathetic, a desperate plea for recognition.

He doesn’t get it, but the Asset does shudder, eyes blinking furiously.

For Yevgeny, it’s like watching a nuclear reactor start to melt down, the indicator lights flashing at the highest level.

He reaches out to grab at Clint’s fingers, giving them a gentle tug to get his attention.

Clint glances back at him, giving him a quick nod as they duck out of the room.

Yevgeny doesn’t have to see. He knows how things are going to go, and the sudden sound of metal _tearing_  is enough to make both him and Clint break into a sprint.

Clint pulled the door open at record speed, and Yevgeny hurtled inside.

Bad plan. The Asset was already off the table, holding Steve off the floor by his neck.

He couldn’t tell if Steve had simply been caught off guard, or if he was simply paralyzed by the entire situation.

Things had gone about as bad as he expected, if Yevgeny was being truthful.

The Asset was already up, already off the table. For the thousandth time Yevgeny missed his vocal cords, missed the ability to just yell _nyet_  and have the Asset comply.

Instead he jumped. He was far from peak fitness, but he hadn’t fallen that far. He landed squarely on the Asset’s back, wrapping his arm around the Asset’s throat and pulling back.

It wasn’t going to make the Asset drop him Steve. It was going to make the Asset flip him _and_  drop Steve.

He flipped, colliding back-first with the mirrored wall, the breath whooshing out of him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been thrown, and he sincerely doubted it would be the last.

He was up in a blink, even faster than his original. Stupid. His original _should_ have been faster. His original _should_  have been up and combat ready in an instant.

But he was held back by his petty sentimentality.

HYDRA had been right about that much, at least.

Yevgeny didn’t jump away. Instead he jumped  _in,_ letting the Asset wobble backwards as he tried to get clear.

Too imbalanced. Too many years with fifty extra pounds that were suddenly missing on one side.

The Asset went down hard, and Yevgeny went with him, grabbing the front of his hospital gown and hauling himself in close.

 _Nyet,_ he mouthed.

The Asset went still for a second, and then twitched, shuddering under him.

“ _Mission status unclear, requesting authentication,”_ the Asset slurred, his eyes unfocused.

It would always come back to this, wasn’t it?

 _Mission complete, stand down, soldier_ , he mouthed.

He wasn’t sure it was going to be enough. Authentification had always been tricky. A slow moving brain, still groggy from sleep. Half forgotten memories being tapped into for recognition.

He grabbed the Assets hair, keeping himself firmly in place with his legs.

_Stand down, soldier._

Another long, long pause--too long, because there was too much else going on--and the Asset abruptly relaxed, sagging back onto the floor.

“ _Authentication accepted, mission complete, awaiting further orders._ ”

Toneless as always. Nothing had changed, even after years.

He let go of the Asset’s hair, pushing himself off and upright.

“Well, that was fun,” Clint muttered from his spot by the door.

The wrong thing to say, apparently.

His original spun, advancing towards Clint, his hands balled into fists.

“What about that was _fun_? What about that was worth joking about? What about this is a _joke_  to you, Clint?”

The anger in his voice was obvious, and the Asset shifted in response.

 _“Awaiting Orders_ ,” the Asset repeated.

“You’re agitating him,” Clint replies, looking completely unfazed by Steve’s obvious anger.

Yevgeny doesn’t talk, doesn’t bother to mouth the words. The Asset can get his orders through signs just as easily, and he signals quickly as the Asset gets up from the floor, towering over him.

He isn’t going to let his original touch Clint.

He signals quickly-- _protect_ , a gesture at Clint, and then _do not engage_ \--and the Asset darts forward, just as Steve steps towards Clint.

Clint mouths _no_ , but it’s already too late. The Asset is already in motion, and Yevgeny wouldn’t call him back even if he could. There’s a dark anger in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly it’s boiled over.

The Asset catches Steve from behind, his arm jerking around Steve’s throat. He’s off balance, but he doesn’t need to be on the top of his game. Yevgeny doesn’t believe for a second that Steve will really _fight_  him.

He’s right. Steve immediately jerks away, dropping to the ground and getting out of range.

The Asset does as he’s told, and doesn’t follow. He simply stands there, staring at Steve for a moment before sparing a glance to Clint to ensure he’s alright.

His original looks disgusted, his entire face contorted with rage and shame. After a moment he looks away, and then shoves past Clint to leave. Clint sidesteps to keep the Asset from going off, and it’s only when Steve’s out of the room that the Asset turns back to him.

“ _Mission complete, awaiting orders.”_


	32. Chapter 32

Clint isn’t happy with him. The woman is even _less_  happy, and he knows it because the moment she steps into his room, she’s back to _handler_  voice, the anger barely contained.

“You knew he wasn’t going to do anything to me, Yevgeny. You were purposefully antagonizing him,” Clint snaps.

“ _You acted against your orders,”_ the woman cuts in, and the only thing that keeps Yevgeny from flinching is the anger in his stomach.

The Asset bristles, and Yevgeny’s forced to wonder how much he understands. Tone, at least. He knows the tone, knows that Yevgeny is being berated.

The Asset steps in front of him, and the argument comes to a screeching halt.

Even with one arm missing, the Asset is still _dangerous_. Even more so in such close quarters, with so few places to flee to. There’s no option for long range in a small room, and only one exit.

“ _You have disobeyed orders, stand-”_ The woman starts, and Clint cuts her off.

“Nat!” He snaps, turning his head towards her. “Back off.”

An expression flashes across Nat’s face so fast that Yevgeny doesn’t even get time to read it, and then she does--physically moving back and going quiet.

The Asset seems to relax slightly, the _threat_  having stood down.

Clint isn’t happy, but it’s not _anger_ in his expression. Yevgeny couldn’t name it if he tried.

“Yevgeny,” Clint starts. “You’re better than this. He isn’t a tool any more than you are, and when you use him like this you just drag yourself down.”

He knows that Clint is wrong. He is a tool--he’s a tool for controlling the Asset. It’s what he was made for, and it’s what he’s best at.

 _He isn’t a person_ , Yevgeny mouths. _He is a tool. The person is long dead. He won’t even eat until someone tells him to._

“He survived almost a year on his own, no handlers. If he couldn’t eat, he’d be dead.”

 _That_  makes Yevgeny stop. The idea of the Asset--who literally can’t function without a handler--on his own for a year is absurd. Ridiculous.

But Clint has never lied to him before.

 _Then I will help him come out of it. I will tell him what to do and he’ll get better like you want,_ Yevgeny finally mouths. It’s as good a solution as any, far better than anything his original wanted to try.

Clint stares at him so hard that Yevgeny slides back out of pure instinct.

“You don’t want to be separated from him. You want to... to what, to be important to his recovery? To him?”

“Clint,” Natasha says warningly, but it doesn’t stop Clint from taking a step forward.

“That’s what this is about. That's why you had him go after Steve. Because you think Steve is going to replace you. You think that he’s going to come to his senses, and then he’ll care about Steve, not you.”

The room goes quiet. Yevgeny opens his mouth to say _no_ , to tell Clint that he’s wrong, but no sound comes out.

Clint isn’t wrong.

Yevgeny turns away and the Asset is there, just the way he always is.

Just the way he always will be.

There are tears in the corners of his eyes as he signals for the Asset to follow, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s only one door, and Clint’s standing right in front of it, so instead he stalks to the far side of the room, signalling for the Asset to guard.

Then he sits down and curls up, burying his face in his knees.


	33. Chapter 33

“That was too harsh,” Natasha says, her eyes fixed firmly on the corner where Yevgeny remained, Barnes standing guard like a silent statue.

“Coming from you? It was the truth. He needed to hear it. He’s been acting like this since the moment we found out Barnes was nearby. I don’t see how he could _not_  act like this,” Clint snaps, sparing a glance towards Yevgeny to be sure the boy wasn’t reading lips.

“Steve is obsessed with Barnes because he’s the only piece of his old life he has left. Yevgeny is obsessed with the Asset because he’s the only piece of his old life he has left. And now we’ve let Steve dance around talking about how he’s going to bring Bucky back. This is our fault as much as it is his--we should have seen this coming.”

More her fault than his, if she was being honest. She was the expert. She was the one who should have seen it coming, should have realized how toxic it was likely to be. _She_  was the one who’d sat Steve down for a talk, and yet everything had still boiled over.

“At least he’s not agitated,” Clint mumbles under his breath, sparing a glance at the still soldier.

“For how long? We still need to get him out of the corner. What are we supposed to do, shoot Barnes with a tranquilizer and drag him out?”

Clint shoots her a nasty look.

“Let me talk to him.”

“That went so well last time,” she mutters under her breath.

“Just go get... I don’t know, Bruce. Bruce is handy to have. Thor would be better, because Steve sure as hell isn’t going to do anything if Barnes goes berserk.”

She clucks her tongue, but leaves the room anyway.

* * *

 

Yevgeny curls in on himself, making himself as small as possible.

He refuses to let himself cry.

He hears the Asset move, and he peeks out from between his legs to find Clint’s feet standing a few feet away, staring down at him.

“You’re better than this,” Clint says, and Yevgeny turns away.

It’s harder to ignore Clint than it is to ignore his original, though. He likes Clint. Or he liked Clint. He isn’t sure anymore.

“What you were _made_  to do doesn’t matter. People are born every day without any purpose at all, but they still find it. The fact that you grew up as his handler doesn’t mean you have to spend the rest of your life that way. He’s breaking away from his conditioning, just like you were. Eventually he’s going to break away entirely, and you holding on even harder isn’t going to make him stay.”

He feels like he’s been kicked in the gut, and tries to make himself even smaller.

“I know it’s hard. The thought of losing him is probably terrifying. You probably think that he’s the only thing you have, and if you lose him, you won’t have anything. You won’t _be_  anything.”

Yevgeny can’t possibly make himself any smaller. He’s as small as he can get, curled into the tightest ball possible.

“But you’re wrong, Yevgeny. I’m going to be here no matter what happens, alright? Even now. Even though you’re angry with me. Nat’s going to be there, and Bruce is going to be there. Hell, even Tony’s going to be there.”

The idea of it--that anyone would care about him--is ridiculous.

He isn’t strong like his original. The serum he has is faulty, an inferior product. It keeps him alive, kept the myriad of health problems from killing him, but it doesn’t make him _good_.

He hears movement, but he doesn’t look up.

“I am going to sit with him,” Clint says firmly, and Yevgeny can’t tell who he’s supposed to be talking to. Not him, either way. “He’s upset, he needs someone to sit with him. I don’t even have a knife, let alone a gun.”

There’s a long silence, and then more movement.

Yevgeny feels a hand on his shoulder and jerks away. Clint has--somehow--managed to get his way around the Asset, who looks on, even as he stares at Clint.

Yevgeny gets the impression that if he’d jerked back any harder, Clint’s neck would have been snapped before he had time to react.

“This conversation would be a lot easier to have if I didn’t have to constantly check to make sure that he’s not about to murder me.”

Yevgeny glances away, then up at the Asset.

 _Mission complete,_ he signals.

“ _Mission complete, awaiting further orders,”_ the Asset replies.

It’s not quite as toneless as it should be. 

Yevgeny looks away, but he doesn’t pull away when Clint drapes an arm around his shoulders.

“You aren’t going to be thrown away,” Clint says softly. “No matter what, alright? I wouldn’t ever, ever throw you away.”

He doesn’t understand when Clint pulls him close, but it isn’t awful.

He sags against him, squeezing his eyes shut. He wants to sleep. He wants to sleep, or to go back. He wants to have movie night again.

He doesn’t know what he wants to do about the Asset.

“You need to eat,” Clint insists. “He can come with you, alright? And you can make him eat or whatever. But you need to eat. Did he even sleep, before?”

Yevgeny shakes his head, turning so that Clint can read his lips.

 _He needs to authenticate after sleep_. He lets Clint find the implications on his own. He’s never felt the need to spell things out for him, and that hasn’t changed.

“Then let’s go. I’ll make you some food, alright?”

Yevgeny nods numbly, but when Clint takes his wrist and gives it a little pull, he unfolds, standing upright. He doesn’t even think before signalling for the Asset to follow, trailing out of the room in a bizarre line.


	34. Chapter 34

Clint makes food. The food isn’t terribly _good_ , but it’s home cooked, and Yevgeny is in no position to complain.

The Asset sits beside him, still and silent as Clint sets the plates down.

Yevgeny is dimly aware that there are people watching--Natasha’s by the door and Bruce is just behind her--but ignores them.

He eats his eggs.

Clint slides a plate over to the Asset, obviously unclear if there’s anything he can do to make the man eat. Then, he digs into his own food, blowing on it to cool it down.

“I am sorry I hurt your feelings, Yevgeny. But I meant what I said. All of it. You shouldn’t be afraid of someone taking him away from you. People need to make their own decisions, and that includes him.”

Yevgeny can’t quite agree that the Asset is a _person_ , even if Clint continues to insist that he survived just fine on his own.

Yevgeny uses the fork to shovel the eggs around his plate, but he doesn’t eat any.

He turns to glance towards the Asset, and then signals for him to eat.

The Asset eats, and Yevgeny turns back to his plate.

“You were always together, I guess,” Clint says, and Yevgeny shakes his head, flashing eight fingers.

“When they gave you the serum?” Clint guesses, and Yevgeny nods.

More than a decade. It feels even longer, padded out by constant freezing and thawing.

He feels something touch his side and flinches, glancing up.

The Asset’s gone wrong again. His eyes look out of focus, The fingers of his only hand tangling into the fabric of Yevgeny’s shirt.

Clint watches, brows furrowing.

“You alright?” He asks quietly.

The Asset isn’t doing anything, just touching him. Not even _him_ \--just his shirt.

He knows what the Asset is expecting. Knows what would have happened already. He isn’t doing things properly, isn’t going through steps the right way. He knows that’s why the Asset is slow, knows that’s why the Asset isn’t functioning properly.

“You alright?” Clint repeats. “Yevgeny?”

Yevgeny signals that he’s okay.

He still remembers what everyone looked like when Tony shoved him off.

“ _Mission?”_  The Asset prompts groggily.

Yevgeny feels like he’s going to be sick.

“When you signal okay, it’s supposed to mean you _are_  okay. You’re not okay,” Clint says, his eyes darting between Yevgeny and the Asset.

The Asset tugs on his shirt again.

“You can tell him to go away. I’m not going to get mad, alright?” Clint insists, pushing himself to his feet and looping around the table to reach down and grab the Asset’s wrist.

Yevgeny can’t look away.

“Let him go, Barnes,” Clint says firmly, and the Asset blinks, his face twitching.

“Stevey,” the Asset mumbles, and Yevgeny recoils.

Clint tightens his grip.

“Yevgeny isn’t Steve, Barnes. Yevgeny is Yevgeny, and you’re scaring him.”

The Asset lets go, his gaze unfocused.

“Stevey,” he mumbles again.

Yevgeny feels his heart go back to normal, no longer attempting to pound its way out of his chest.

“He needs your help,” Clint says softly. “You broke out. You left HYDRA. You can help him leave too.”

 _He doesn’t want me,_ Yevgeny finally says. _He wants the original._

Clint fixes him with a firm stare.

“Steve isn’t going to be able to help him. When he saw Steve he defected, but he also went into hiding. He doesn’t know who he is. You can bring him back. If you want to bring someone out of something like this, you can’t just dump them into normal life. You have to bring them out slowly, with familiar things.”

“Stevey,” the Asset mumbles once more.

“Not Steve,” Clint repeats. “Yevgeny.”

“Yev,” the Asset mumbles.

Yevgeny’s heart twists.


	35. Chapter 35

Natasha approaches as Yevgeny eats.

She treats the Asset with a cold stare before turning back to Yevgeny.

“Feeling better?”

Yevgeny nods, shoveling the last of the eggs Clint made him into his mouth.

“How’s Steve?” Clint asks.

“Taking it about as badly as you can expect. We knew it was going to be bad, but it’s even worse.”

“Tony?”

“Chomping at the bit to take his arm socket apart.”

“That can wait until he’s a bit more _together_ , wouldn’t you say?”

Nat lets out a snort.

“No kidding.”

Yevgeny glances towards the Asset, still staring off into space.

“So what’s the next step?” Clint says, sounding oddly chipper.

“Let me just pull out my ‘how to deprogram a HYDRA agent’ manual,” Nat mutters.

Yevgeny prods Clint in the side, and Clint turns.

 _What’s his name?_ He mouths.

Clint blinks at him for a moment, obviously confused.

“Oh! Uh, Barnes. James Buchanan Barnes. Steve calls him Bucky.”

Yevgeny has heard parts of it--people calling him _Barnes_ , Steve calling him _Buck_ \--but he hasn’t heard the full name before.

Beside him, the Asset stirs, turning to stare at Clint, his eyes focusing ever so slightly.

He makes a noise, but it’s far from an actual _word_.

“So, saying his name. That’s a bonus. Nice find, Clint,” Nat says, raising an eyebrow.

Yevgeny feels another tug on his shirt, but it’s less insistent. He turns back, watching the Asset’s confused face.

“Stevey?” He mumbles.

 _Yevgeny_ , he mouths in return.

There is a sudden, almost overpowering _boom_.

Yevgeny hits the floor. The Asset hits the floor on top of him, although it’s not clear if it’s a conscious choice, or if he falls more because of how off balance he is with his arm missing.

The Asset crushes him against his chest, but the sound is not repeated. There’s no debris, no heat.

Wherever the explosion was, it was nearby.

Clint stares down at him on the floor, a look of concern on his face.

“It’s fine,” Clint insists. “Honestly. Just loud.”

Yevgeny thinks the Asset is going to break one of his ribs, the pressure too great.

He hammers his fist against the Assets shoulder, and the grip releases.

The Asset looks more confused than anything as Yevgeny pushes himself up, confused and flustered. He doesn’t understand what happened.

The Asset doesn’t get all the way up. Instead he stays kneeling on the floor, staring up at him with wide, confused eyes.

 _What exploded?_  Yevgeny signs quickly.

“Nothing,” Clint says, and then lets out a sigh. “We might as well just go upstairs, because if we don’t, he’s going to come down _here_.”

“You really think that’s a good idea?” Nat says, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s an awful idea, but Thor’s not going to take no for an answer.”

* * *

 

Thor, as it turns out, is a man. A large man. A man even larger than his original.

His outfit is ridiculous.

He is, if nothing else, _extremely loud_.

“Clint!” The man booms, dragging Clint into a hug.

Yevgeny hangs back. The Asset stands at his side, slightly less blank than he was earlier.

“Natasha! It is good to see you after so long!” The man declares loudly, switching targets as he pulls Natasha into an overly friendly hug.

Natasha squirms in his grip.

“Thor, hold on, pause. No hug. No hug for me. Do not hug the new guy,” she says, squirming in his grip.

Thor looks up, spotting Yevgeny and his shadow for the first time.

The man blinks, then smiles widely.

“We have new members! You should have told me.”

Yevgeny decides that the man is insane.

Clint neatly inserts himself between Yevgeny and Thor.

“Thor, this is Yevgeny. And... Barnes,” he says, obviously not clear what he’s supposed to be calling the Asset.

The Asset twitches at the sound of his own name, his head slowly swinging towards Yevgeny. He simply stares, not saying anything at all.

Thor releases Natasha, but before he can move any farther, she’s planted a hang on his stomach, pushing him back.

“No hugs. No physical affection. Yevgeny needs space. Barnes needs even more space. You came at a _very_ bad time.”

“Bad?” Thor asks, cocking his head.

Yevgeny is having a hard time following. He gets--on a very basic level--that the man must be a friend. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have access to the building at all. But his connection to the boom, the reason he acts so odd--those remain a mystery.

“He is missing an arm,” Thor notices, staring at the Asset.

“It’s metal, it’s in the lab,” Clint clarifies.

Thor doesn’t seem phased by the information, smiling pleasantly.

Thor turns to glance at Yevgeny, and then his brows furrow together.

“He looks... small,” Thor observes. “Like...” Thor trails off.

“He’s a clone of Steve,” Natasha clarifies.

Thor seems surprised by _that_  at least, but he takes it in stride.

“Ah, a little Steve!”

“He goes by Yevgeny. Call him Yevgeny,” Clint insists, his voice sounding somewhat strained.

“Steve?” Mumbles the Asset, his brows furrowing in confusion that mirrors Thor’s own.

“Is he alright?” Thor says, significantly quieter than he’s been for the entire duration of the conversation.

“Not really, no,” Natasha replies. “We can explain later.”

Thor takes this in stride, giving a little nod.

“Well, welcome, Yevgeny. And... Barnes. Please feel better,” he says, and then he’s gone, walking past them off to find everyone else.

“That went shockingly well,” Clint mutters under his breath.

“Don’t jinx it,” Nat replies.

Yevgeny wonders if everyone has gone insane.


	36. Chapter 36

The rest of the evening passes in almost blissful solitude.

He plays cards with Clint. The Asset sits beside him, occasionally mumbling to himself. Mostly it’s the same things. Most it’s Steve’s name, and sometimes his own. Sometimes there are longer things, and Clint doesn’t say a word when Yevgeny turns away to reply.

Sometimes he asks for a mission, but Yevgeny doesn’t have one for him.

Over time, the Asset stops talking so much. It’s obvious that he’s growing tired, slow, and dull.

“He needs to sleep,” Clint finally says. They should have slept hours ago. “ _You_  need to sleep,” he says with a pointed look at Yevgeny.

 _He needs me when he wakes up_ , Yevgeny mouths, and Clint lets out a little sigh.

“We know. You’ll be there when he wakes up. How do you get him to sleep?”

 _I tell him to_ , he mouths, and Clint nods.

They find a room not far from his own. It looks the same, but less personal--his room when he first arrived, before he had things to put in it.

“Probably a good thing we didn’t move you,” Nat mutters under his breath as he gestures to the bed, signaling for the Asset to sleep.

The Asset doesn’t take the order as easily as he should, but when Yevgeny repeats it he nods, lying down and closing his eyes.

They leave the room in silence.

“We need to have a talk,” Natasha says, looking at Yevgeny.

Clint blinks, glancing between them.

“Not with you. Sorry Clint,” she adds.

Clint throws his hands up.

“I’m not going to get between you two. Might I recommend the roof, whose microphones are not currently working properly?”

Nat shoots him a smile, and then glances at Yevgeny.

He isn’t sure if he can opt out of the conversation, but he gets the impression that it’s not an option.

Suddenly he wishes that he hadn’t put the Asset to sleep so quickly.

“You’ll be fine,” Natasha reassures him, guiding him up to the roof.

* * *

 

The roof is cold, but strangely familiar. Not because he’s been up there before, but because he’s been on so many roofs like it.

Natasha finds them a place to sit near the far corner, well away from the cameras, and only barely in the light.

He worries she can’t see him well enough to read his lips, but she seems perfectly capable.

“I need to talk to you about the Asset,” she says quietly. “About you _and_  the Asset.”

Yevgeny’s stomach sinks through the floor.

“I know how HYDRA works. I know the sorts of things they do. I’m not going to make you explain it all to me, I’m not going to make you go into detail. I just need you to confirm what I’m already seeing.”

Yevgeny stares at his hands. He hopes she won’t drag it out.

She doesn’t.

“I need to know if they made you slee-” She cuts herself off, rephrasing. “Have sex with the Asset.”

Yevgeny nods.

It’s merciful. She doesn’t drag it out, doesn’t make him explain.

“That’s why he’s acting groggy.”

He nods again.

“You shouldn’t. Not having it there might help him realize that things are different here,” she says quietly.

Her hand reaches out, and then she withdraws it, second guessing herself.

“Yevgeny,” she says softly. “You shouldn’t have had to do that sort of thing. No one should ever have to. But you need to...” She breaks off for a moment, letting out a little sigh. “I’m not good at this. Clint would have been better. So I’ll try and keep it short. When Tony pushed you off, it wasn’t because what you were doing is bad. It’s not _bad_ to do that sort of thing. But when you do that sort of thing, it should be with someone you care about. It should be with everyone involved wanting it. In their right minds.”

The Asset isn’t in his right mind. He isn’t sure he is either.

“I’ll get you a book,” Natasha mutters under her breath. “To help with this stuff. Somehow I doubt that HYDRA gave you a comprehensive sex ed class.”

Yevgeny nods, although he’s not sure if he’s supposed to.

Natasha lets out a little sigh.

“I won’t talk to Clint about this, and he won't ask. You don’t have to tell anyone you don’t want to, and you don’t have to talk to anyone else. If Barnes tries anything, you can get him to back off whatever way you feel is right, and I’ll have your back, alright?”

Natasha carefully wraps an arm around his shoulders, giving him a little squeeze. He doesn’t flinch, doesn't pull away. Clint’s done it enough time that he recognizes the gesture, and he leans against her carefully.


	37. Chapter 37

Yevgeny’s nervously doing pushups when Natasha and Clint finally come to get him, working off the excess energy. He hopes--really, _really_  hopes--that the Asset is still asleep in his room. If he’s not, there’ll be trouble.

The fact that neither Clint nor Natasha looks terribly concerned answers the question for him. If the Asset were up--if there was already trouble--they’d look more upset.

“Feeling alright?” Clint asks, waving him out of the room. Yevgeny nods quickly, glancing between the two of them before frowning.

This would be easier if there was just one.

Yevgeny lets out a little huff before signalling to Clint that he wants to talk to him alone. Clint watches his hands for a moment before glancing to Natasha, opening his mouth to speak.

“I know, I know. I’m not blind. I’ll meet you there,” Nat says, rolling her eyes and heading off down the hall in the direction of the Assets room.

“You wanted to talk?” Clint says, raising an eyebrow.

Yevgeny fidgets, looking at anything but Clint before finally deciding that if he’s gotten that far--making Nat head off on her own--he might as well go all the way with it.

 _Is my original going to be there?_  He mouths.

Clint doesn’t pause to think about it, simply nods. He’s probably already there, if Yevgeny is being honest to himself. He isn’t _entirely_  clear of the dynamics between the two, but he at least understands that they were close beforehand.

 _Should I apologize?_  He finally asks.

Clint’s eyebrows press together for a moment, and then he abruptly relaxes, grinning down at him.

“Yeah, probably. You’re not supposed to attack your allies, and you _are_  allies, even if you don’t like him very much.”

Apologies-- _true_ apologies--were rare enough in HYDRA that Yevgeny can count the ones he’s made on a single hand, and he shifts, slightly uncomfortable even if he was the one to volunteer the idea in the first place.

 _How?_ He signs.

Probably better to just _ask._

Clint stares at him for a moment before making a little _hmm_  noise.

“Well, how would you have done it before?”

Yevgeny is almost _entirely_  sure that the way of making up for a mistake in HYDRA isn’t going to go over well, but he says it anyway.

 _I’d offer my life to make up for my mistake,_  he mouths.

Clint lets out a laugh, and it’s Yevgeny’s turn to be confused, unclear about _why_  he feels the need to laugh at all.

“Sorry - that’s just, well - a bit more dramatic than I expected. You don’t need to go that far. You just say that you’re sorry, and you can leave it at that. Steve’s a bit stressed, but he’s not a bad guy.”

Yevgeny doesn’t see why anyone would forgive anyone just because they said the words _I’m sorry_ , but Clint has yet to lead him astray, so he simply nods.

Of course, that doesn’t solve the problem of _how_  he’d apologize. As far as he knows, his original can’t read lips, and the hand signs are almost exclusively between him and Clint.

 _Would you translate?_  He mouths, and Clint nods.

“Alright, that’s taken care of. Anything else?” Clint asks, and Yevgeny quickly shakes his head.

“Let's go then.”

* * *

 

Natasha and his original are both lingering outside the room when they arrive. Natasha’s watching them approach, but his original doesn’t even glance in their direction, his eyes fixed to the screen. The Asset is still asleep, looking oddly out of place on the small bed.

It’s massive for him, but undersized for the Asset.

“Steve?” Clint calls, and his original turns, giving the two of them a quick glance. “Yevgeny wanted to tell you something.”

His original doesn’t look terribly interested, but he does manage to tear his eyes away from the screen enough to turn and face him properly.

Yevgeny’s stomach does a flip, but Clint gives him a little nod.

 _I’m sorry_ , he mouths, and Clint’s already started to turn away when he continues, requiring the man to glance back quickly. _Is Sam still in the hospital?_

Over Steve’s shoulder, Nat suppresses a chuckle, and Clint lets out a deep breath.

“He said he was sorry for yesterday, and then he asked if Sam was doing okay.”

It’s not an exact translation--far from it--but Yevgeny decides that it’s close enough that there’s no point taking issue with it.

His original seems genuinely surprised--at least about the apology--and takes a moment to compose himself enough for a response. The standoffish demeanor is gone, and Yevgeny is paying enough attention to watch him relax when he finally talks.

“Thank you for that, but it’s not really one sided. I should have thought things through more. And... thanks for asking, Sam’s fine. Going to have a hell of a scar, and he’s probably going to make me buy him drinks for the next year though.”

Yevgeny doesn’t _quite_  get it, but he nods just the same. Clint was right, as he always was--apology accepted.

Natasha popped her head around Steve, glancing down at him.

“How exactly _do_  you wake him up? I assume authentication and then you give him a mission?” She says, and Yevgeny nods briefly.

“Did they ever reset him while you were still awake, as opposed to between freezes?” She asks.

Yevgeny doesn’t quite understand the connection between the two points--they seem entirely unrelated to him--but he nods anyway.

“How did he get when he went a long while between resets?” She asks, and Yevgeny has to stop to think. It’s been a long, long while since the Asset went a long period between resets. 

 _Confused_ , he finally mouths. That’s the biggest thing he remembers--the Asset becoming sloppy and confused, mixing things up and staring into space.

Natasha nods, and it seems obvious that his answer was just what she was expecting.

“The act of completely _removing_  memories would have required damaging his brain in a way that would make him significantly less useful. So instead they suppressed them. As long as they keep him wiped, the act of  _suppressing_  his memories should functionally be the same as _erasing_  his memories, but with far fewer side effects. But for us, the results would be very different.”

The entire discussion feels strangely surreal to Yevgeny. In all his years with HYDRA, the idea that there might be a _reason_  for the wipes had never quite occurred to him. It had simply been how things were--if the Asset malfunctioned, he was wiped.

He’s forced to wonder what else he’s taken as a given has been misunderstood.

“So, best course of action... waking him up, holding off on authentification to see if he can get by without it, and not giving him any orders?” Steve says, glancing back towards the screen.

The Asset still hasn’t moved, much to his immediately obvious relief.

“Sounds about right,” Clint adds, giving Yevgeny a little grin.

“We’ve got your back if you need anything, alright? Just signal.”

Yevgeny doesn’t think he’ll need help, but he nods anyway.


	38. Chapter 38

It is something that Yevgeny has done a thousand times before, but he still tells himself that it’s different. HYDRA is not there. There are no techs waiting in the wings to wipe the Asset if he shows too much confusion. There are no redos if things go wrong. The Asset is the Asset, and confused is apparently how everyone wants him. Confused means thinking, after all.

Yevgeny kneels down beside the cot, reaching up to touch the Asset’s shoulder.

The Assets eyes pop open like they’re spring loaded, an instinctive reaction, and then he goes still, the confused look from the day before settling in.

“Awaiting mission,” he mumbles, but it’s not in Russian--it’s in English.

He’s confused, obviously.

 _No mission_ , Yevgeny mouths, saying it in English to see if it’ll work.

It does and doesn’t, the Asset’s eyebrows furrowing together.

“Stevey?” The Asset mumbles, his confusion obvious.

 _Yevgeny,_ he repeats, wondering how many times he’ll have to correct his name. Maybe always. Maybe he’ll never actually remember it.

The Asset mumbles something to himself, too low to be heard.

“This isn’t where I was,” the Asset says suddenly, and Yevgeny jumps in surprise. It’s the longest sentence he’s ever heard the Asset say, the overwhelming majority of his communication limited to two or three words. Mission acknowledged. Mission complete. Target aquired. Target eliminated.

Yevgeny feels the Asset sliding out of his control, and it takes all of his self control to not try and snatch it back.

 _You were moved,_ he mouths, but the Asset has turned away, looking around the room, and doesn’t see him say it. Irritating, but there’s precious little he can do about it.

The Asset sits up, and is rewarded by nearly falling off the cot. He’s clearly struggling with how unbalanced he is, and Yevgeny’s sure he’s suffering for the loss of his arm, even if he doesn’t say it.

“ _My arm_ ,” the Asset mutters in Russian, staring down at the place where his arm _should_  be.

Yevgeny reaches out, lightly touching the Asset’s wrist to draw his attention. It works, and the Asset turns, staring back at him. His eyes are still unfocused, but at least he’s facing the right direction.

“You... I know you?” He mumbles, staring down at Yevgeny.

Yevgeny isn’t sure if he’s supposed to shake his head or nod. He knows the Asset, but he doesn’t know the man he was before.

 _Yevgeny_ , he mouths once more for lack of a better thing to say.

The Asset doesn’t seem to accept the answer as is, staring at him even more intensely than before.

“You -” He cuts himself off, staring all the more intensely. “You’re HYDRA.”

Yevgeny doesn’t have a chance to react properly before the Asset has lunged at him. From his position on the floor, Yevgeny has only a limited number of options, and he jerks backwards, trying to clear the other man’s grip.

He knows how the Asset fights. It’s not the first time the Asset has come at him, but it’s the first time it’s been anything more than a training exercise.

Even so, he knows what to do.

The Asset goes for his throat with his one remaining hand, and Yevgeny doesn’t bother with his own arms. Instead he brings his knee up, slamming it into the Asset’s ribs.

The door slams open as he does, and he throws his weight into it, pressing hard when he feels the Asset flinch.

“He’s not HYDRA!” Clint yells, just as Natasha yells the same in Russian. Even as his heart pound away in his chest, Yevgeny isn’t _quite_  scared. He’s fought the Asset before. He knows what to do. And the Asset is down an arm and running at half efficiency if he’s being charitable about it.

 He rolls clear, popping to his feet before the Asset can do the same.

Clint opens his mouth, but he’s already signaled _okay_  before he can ask.

The Asset lets out a groan, bringing his hand down to rub across his ribs. Bruised. Probably broken, but they won’t be broken for long. Even if the Asset’s modifications were nowhere close to the super soldier serum, they’re still well above Yevgeny’s own.

The Asset lets out a little wheeze as he pushes himself upright, bracing himself against the wall to get to his feet.

“He’s HYDRA,” the Asset pants, and Yevgeny’s forced to wonder who he’s telling. Himself? The other people in the room?

“He _was_  HYDRA,” Clint insists. “He’s not anymore. He left.”

The Asset reaches across his body, digging his fingers into where the flesh of his shoulder _should_ be. It’s all metal, no flesh, and there’s no give to it.

The Asset’s face flashes between confusion and anger, and he slams his back against the wall with a pained noise.

“He’s not real,” the Asset whined, his voice cracking.

“He needs to calm down,” Natasha snapped, stepping backwards and waving towards the door.

His original. His original would calm him down.

Yevgeny forced himself to hang back as Steve stepped in, a pained look on his own face that closely mirrored the Asset’s own.

“Bucky-” He started, only to be drowned out by the Asset.

“You aren’t real, you died, you aren’t real,” he started to say, repeating it over and over like a program caught in a loop.

Whatever it was his original was trying to do, it wasn’t working, and Yevgeny darted forward even as the Asset dropped his hand to try and repel him.

Too slow.

Yevgeny hooked his foot behind the Asset’s knee, pulling it forward with a jerk. He knew how to do it. Knew how to take the Asset down, even if he likely couldn’t take anyone else of the same size. Knew when the Asset would pause, knew every gap and weakness.

He grabbed the Asset’s hair as the man’s knees cracked on the ground, jerking his face up to look at him as he leaned over.

 _Calm down_ , he mouthed, and the Asset squirmed under his gaze.

Not control, not there wasn’t any retaliation either. Even though the Asset could have easily done any number of things, he simply sat there, his remaining arm falling limply at his side.

“You’re not real,” he mumbles again.

Yevgeny’s stomach twists.

 _I am real_ , he mouths. _But I’m not Steve_.

The Asset blinks slowly up at him, his eyes empty.

Yevgeny lets go of the Asset’s hair, petting it gently instead. Like a dog, he reflects, but doesn’t bother stopping.

 _Steve is here_ , he mouths, and the Asset blinks, turning his head away.

“He’s not real,” he mumbles again.

Very, very aware that everyone in the room is watching him, Yevgeny tries his best to turn the Asset’s face back up without simply grabbing his hair and forcing him to look the way he would have previously.

 _He’s real. He’s right there,_  he insists, gesturing back towards Steve.

The Asset stares up at him in confusion, but doesn’t turn to look.

“Should I go?” Steve asks, clearly uncertain.

There’s a long silence as everyone seems to consider the options, and then Natasha nods.

“For the time being, he’s confused. Probably better to give a bit of space and try again later.”

Steve nods, and while he looks hurt, he doesn’t protest further as he leaves the room.

The Asset seems to relax however slightly.

“What now?” Clint asks, glancing between Yevgeny and the man at his feet.

Yevgeny isn’t sure. He knows there should be a mission, but there’s no mission to give, and Clint’s made it clear enough that not giving a mission at all is probably the best.

He glances down to the Asset, still sitting on the floor staring up at him, his eyes unfocused. He’s gone silent again, and Yevgeny can’t tell if that’s a good or a bad thing.

 _Come, we’ll get food_ , he mouths, and even though it isn’t an order--and spoken in English at that--the Asset moves to comply, standing upright and ready to follow.

 _Food_ , he signals to Clint, and Clint nods, even if he seems wary at the idea of parading the Winter Soldier around the base _again_.


	39. Chapter 39

The Winter Soldier eats as Yevgeny does, his lucidity coming in fits and starts. Sometimes he’s back to being the Asset, the perfect soldier. Sometimes he prompts Yevgeny for a mission, and confusion reigns when Yevgeny tells him that there isn’t one. For them, there was always a mission, and _not_  having one is something new.

Sometimes--mostly for brief moments--he’s almost lucid.

He asks Yevgeny his name. He gets confused about where he is. At one point--very briefly--he talks about being in a dark, and wonders at his change of clothes.

At one point Thor joins them, sitting down at the table and attempting a lively conversation with the very confused man across from him. Shockingly enough, it does seem to have _some_  sort of effect, and after a good deal of prompting, the Asset manages to mumble out a slightly disjointed story about playing cards, even if he forgets what the story was about midway through.

Finally he manages to put himself together enough to manage a question, facing Thor directly, his eyebrows squished together in a tight line of confusion.

“Who’s he?” He asks, tilting his head in Yevgeny’s direction.

Thor glances between the two of them for a moment, and out of the corner of his eye Yevgeny can see Clint cringing already.

“He is Steve, but much smaller,” Thor announces, and Natasha lets out a groan behind him.

“Steve?” The Asset asks, glancing towards Yevgeny, staring firmly. “Steve’s bigger,” he adds, obviously unsure of himself.

Thor takes the confusion in stride.

“Rogers is bigger. This one is smaller.”

Natasha’s burying her face in her hands, which Yevgeny supposes means that it’s not going well.

The Asset glances back to Thor, and Yevgeny wonders if he should stop him, if only to prevent Thor from confusing him more.

“He doesn’t talk,” the Asset finally says. “I just see him.”

Thor glances between them again, and Yevgeny wonders if Thor even knows enough about him to know why.

 _I can’t talk_ , he mouths to Thor, and Thor squints at him.

“He’s trying to talk, but I can’t hear him either,” he says, turning to the Asset as if confiding in him.

“He’s mute,” Clint cuts in, grabbing a seat at the table in an obvious attempt to mitigate Thor’s influence. “He can’t talk anymore. You have to watch his mouth to know what he’s saying.”

The Asset stares into space so long that Thor glances back over to Clint.

“Is he alright?” He asks, nodding his head towards where the Asset sits.

“He’s improving,” Clint says.

“Could he talk before?” The Asset suddenly asks, dragging the conversation back a few steps.

Thor glances towards him, and Yevgeny nods yes.

“He says yes. You could just ask him yourself, you know.”

The thought doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Asset, who pauses and glances back towards Yevgeny.

“You talked before,” he mumbles, and Yevgeny nods in response. He isn’t clear how much of anything the Asset remembers, but it feels oddly comforting to know that he at least _sort_  of remembers him.

 _Eat your food_ , he mouths, and the Asset nods, looking back at his plate before grabbing a fork and starting to eat again.

“What about you, little Steve?” Thor asks, and Yevgeny stares at him, completely unclear on what he’s asking.

Clint clears his throat.

“You’ll want to be more direct when talking to him Thor, he’s not one for smalltalk.”

“Oh. Is he going to become an Avenger? He seems awfully small for that...”

Yevgeny has no idea what an Avenger is, and looks to Clint for some kind of explanation.

“That's who we are. Everyone who lives here,” Clint clarifies, before turning to Thor. “No, he’s not. And for the record, he’s an adult, he’s just small.”

 _Why not?_  Yevgeny mouths at him, brows furrowing in annoyance.

“Because you need like ten solid years of therapy before you go anywhere near a dangerous situation again,” Clint says firmly. “Non-negotiable.”

Yevgeny grumbles, but decides that arguing in front of the Asset is a bad idea.

“I want to try something,” Natasha says suddenly, moving towards the table. “What’s Barnes going to do if Yevgeny leaves the room and Rogers comes back in?”

The Asset gives no sign that he hears his name at all, still working his way through the remains of the food.

Yevgeny shrugs, tapping the Asset on the shoulder to get his attention, and the Asset immediately pauses, the fork hanging in the air forgotten as he turns to look.

 _I’ll come back in a bit,_ he mouths, standing up.

“I’ll take him to the range,” Clint says, standing up himself and giving Thor a quick wave before steering Yevgeny out.

Yevgeny hopes that everyone will still be in one piece when he gets back.


	40. Chapter 40

Steve is having a hard time not being nervous, and he doubts anyone would blame him. Bucky can’t be more than twenty five feet away, separated by a wall or two.

He paces.

Any time Thor laughs particularly loudly--which seems to be _every_  time Thor laughs--he has to fight the urge to simply open the door and go in, just to see how he’s doing.

He jumps when the door opens, revealing Clint and Yevgeny.

“We’re going to the range, Nat wanted to see what would happen if you swapped in. He might think you’re Yevgeny--just... clarify for him,” Clint explains.

“Is he doing better?”

Clint nods quickly, glancing back over his shoulder.

“He seems to like Thor. Probably helps that Thor’s very upfront with everything. Thor’s taken to calling Yevgeny _little Steve_ , which can’t be helping.”

Steve cringes at the nickname, and the look on Yevgeny’s face makes it obvious that the feeling is mutual.

Steve gives them both a nod before heading through the door and into the room.

Thor seems to be telling some kind of story--Steve’s missed half of it--but he’s having a hard time focusing on what’s being said. Bucky’s right there, just sitting at the table watching Thor. He’s still not quite the same--the missing arm is the big tipoff, but the hospital gown he’s wearing doesn’t help matters--but he’s still _there_.

He didn’t think he was ever going to get to see Bucky again, but there he is, just sitting there on the bench.

“Steve!” Thor says loudly, waving him towards the table, and Bucky blinks, turning around to look at him.

“Steve?” He asks, looking confused. His eyes aren’t quite in focus, but he looks a thousand times better than he did on the helicarrier.

“Yeah Buck,” he says quietly, and moves to sit down beside him only to be stopped by Natasha.

“Sit beside Thor,” she instructs, and Steve stares at her for a moment before shrugging and circling around the table.

Bucky watches him go, brows still furrowed in confusion.

“You’re Steve, and he’s... not Steve?” He says quietly. “The Russian?”

It’s already going better than Steve thought, and he nods.

“Yeah. Yevgeny. And I’m Steve--He just looks like me, but he’s not me.”

Bucky stares into space for a moment, then nods.

“I knew you, didn’t I?” Bucky says, and Thor abruptly clears his throat, nearly ruining the moment.

“I should go find Tony, I haven’t seen him yet today,” he says, pushing himself up from the table and giving Bucky a wave.

Bucky stares at him for a moment, then waves back, watching as Thor leaves.

Natasha stays where she is, leaning against the wall and watching. Steve decides that’s probably for the best, because he isn’t sure how well he’ll fare if he has to fight Bucky _again_.

“Yeah, you knew me. We were friends. Best friends. We grew up together,” he explains when Bucky turns back to him.

“There was a train...” Bucky says, trailing off for a moment. “It was cold.”

There’s only one train that Steve can think of that would come up so soon, and he nods.

“We were on a train on a mission. During the war. But you fell, and I thought you had died.”

“I did,” Bucky said sadly. “I died. I fell and I died. This is someone else.”

Steve wants to reach out and take his hand, desperate to give him some kind of physical support, but he’s wary of setting him off, and too cautious to make any sudden movements. Bucky’s well being matters more than his own wants, and he shakes his head instead.

“You didn’t die, Buck. You just... went away for a while. And now you’re back.”

“I hurt people,” Bucky mumbles. “I hurt lots of people. But you were there, Steve. You were there.”

He’s mixing them up again, becoming less and less focused the more they talk.

“You didn’t hurt anyone, Buck. That wasn’t you. HYDRA made you do it.”

Bucky twitches like he’s just had a little seizure and looks away, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I hurt people,” he repeats.

“It wasn’t you,” Steve tries to insist, but there’s no response. Bucky simply sits there, his eyes tightly shut, his breathing uneven.

“Give him some space,” Natasha says softly from across the room, and Steve does, inching back.

There’s a long, long silence and then Bucky opens his eyes, staring into space.

“Bucky?” Steve prompts, leaning in again despite himself.

Bucky doesn’t respond.


	41. Chapter 41

As much as Yevgeny likes time on the range, it’s obvious to the both of them that they’re _both_  antsy to get back. Clint doesn’t shoot for once, just lingers by the doorway, constantly glancing out down the hallway as if expecting to see someone coming to get them.

“They’ll be fine,” Clint says, but Yevgeny gets the feeling that Clint isn’t talking to him so much as himself.

Yevgeny turns in the gun he’s using after only two rounds at the range, glancing towards the door as Clint returns it to the armory.

“Let’s go sit in a room that’s a bit closer,” Clint finally says, and the two of them head back towards the living area.

Not in. Not yet, because interrupting would be bad, but they both grab a seat in a room a little bit off.

They last five minutes before Clint clears his throat.

“I should go get some water, want to come with?”

It’s the most blatant excuse Yevgeny’s ever heard, but he takes it.

The room is quiet when they enter. Thor’s gone, Natasha’s leaning against the wall, and Steve and the Asset are sitting at the table. His original looks like a dog that’s just been kicked, and the Asset doesn’t look like anything at all, staring into space.

“Things going alright?” Clint asks, leaving Yevgeny by the door as he heads towards the kitchen to get some water.

“Fine,” Steve says. “He went quiet after a little bit.”

Yevgeny can only watch, his eyes settling on the Asset.

The silence is long and heavy, and then Steve lowers his head, rubbing at his face with his hands.

“I was stupid. I thought this would be easier. I thought he’d recognize me.”

“He did,” Natasha reminds him. “For a little while.”

Steve lets out a little sigh.

“Can you nudge him?” Natasha asks, turning to Yevgeny. He pauses, then nods, walking over to the table and taking a seat where he sat before.

He opens his mouth to call for him, but there’s no sound.

For a moment he almost forgot, and he closed his mouth, frowning at himself as he reaches out to nudge the Assets side with one hand.

The Asset stirs, turning to stare at him for a moment.

“ _Awaiting orders,_ ” he says in Russian.

 _No orders_ , he mouths. _Relax._

He doubts the Asset has ever been told to _relax_  before, and he seems to struggle with the order.

There’s a knock at the door before he can think of anything else to say, and everyone in the room--save the Asset himself--turn to find Bruce standing in front of it.

“Am I interrupting?” He asks.

Clint shakes his head, taking a sip of his drink.

“I wanted to see if I could grab Yevgeny for a moment.”

Yevgeny has to stop, because he doesn’t think he’s ever been alone with Bruce--not even for a minute. Even worse, he can’t even _think_  of what Bruce might actually want from him.

He pauses for a moment, then shrugs, standing upright.

The Asset turns to watch him go, gazing confusedly in his direction.

Bruce waits for him to reach the hallway, then gestures down back towards the elevator, seeming to have either completely missed or completely ignored the Asset’s confusion.

“I wasn’t really interrupting, was I?” He asks, and Yevgeny shakes his head again.

“Well, I was working on something. A lot of the times when Tony wants me to do something, I have to point out that what he wants from me isn’t my field, and I’m not that kind of doctor. Only this time, it _was_  my field, and I _am_  that kind of doctor, so I didn’t really have a way out of it. I have to admit it was kind of nice to get back to work at something actually relevant, at least.”

Yevgeny has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. He wasn’t even aware that Bruce _was_  a doctor, but he nods anyway.

“Your serum is there, but it’s not doing a very good job. It’s only running at maybe twenty five percent capacity. Especially when it comes to your healing--it should be able to correct more than it is, but it isn’t,” Bruce explains. Yevgeny nods again, but he’s really only following about half of what the man is saying.

“Hydra was particularly limited. By the time they were making you, Red Skull was already dead in the ground, and most of their samples were gone with him. They didn’t have anything good to base it off of, so you got an inferior product.”

Bruce pushes the door to the lab open, and Yevgeny decides that since Bruce doesn’t _normally_  talk so much, it must just be something he’s excited about.

“But I have several advantages over them. I have access to my own work, and I have access to the DNA of the _original_  serum’s subject. Even better, you have the same DNA--so I could simply compare and contrast to see what went right with him and didn’t for you.”

He unlocks a large cupboard, digging around before finally withdrawing a vial about the size of his thumb, holding it up in front of his face as he turns back to Yevgeny.

“So I made this. If you take it, it’s not going to make you like Steve. Quite frankly, I don’t have the capacity to do that, and even if I did, I wouldn’t. What it will do is make your own serum work more effectively. It should improve your healing factor and general health. Some of your scars should probably fix themselves, although not all of them. You might get a bit faster and stronger, but there’s no telling about that. Most of all, I’m confident it isn’t going to cause any unnecessary side effects. It’s not doing anything new to you, just making what's already in you a bit more effective.”

Yevgeny nods immediately, before Bruce even gets a chance to ask.

“We should probably talk to Nat-” Bruce starts, and Yevgeny glares at him, shoving his hand out for the vial.

 _I’m an adult_ , he mouths.

Bruce squints at his mouth, then lets out a sigh.

“Go sit down.”

Yevgeny does, grabbing a seat  and holding out his arm. He knows how to get an injection--he had plenty growing up--and neatly flips his arm over, searching to find a vein before Bruce can even get a needle ready.

“You done this before, obviously,” he notes, but goes through the steps anyway, swabbing down the crook of Yevgeny’s elbow and applying a tourniquet before finding a vein himself.

“You’ll need a new injection every four days until it sticks. There’s no telling how long it’ll take before the effect is permanent, but we can just keep checking until it is,” Bruce explains as he slides the needle in.

Yevgeny doesn’t even feel it. Bruce is obviously making an effort to make sure he feels it as little as possible.

After a moment he finally slides the needle out, carefully disposing of it and glancing back to him.

“I’ll walk you back-” Bruce starts, and Yevgeny immediately shakes his head, pushing himself up and heading to the door. He doesn’t need an escort back, and while Bruce obviously hesitates, he finally nods.

Yevgeny waits until he’s in the elevator before he starts exercising, dropping to the floor and doing push ups on the way down. The faster his heart beats, the faster his blood moves through his body, and the faster the injection gets to where it needs to go.


	42. Chapter 42

Yevgeny steps out of the elevator to find that he isn’t alone--Sam’s there, staring at him and looking vaguely mystified. Yevgeny’s eyes immediately go to the sling his arm is in, and then back up to his face.

“They’re letting you wander around alone already?” He asks.

Yevgeny scowls at him in return.

 _I was with Bruce_ , he mouths, and Sam immediately waves him off.

“Don’t know what you know about me, but I’m not one of those super spies. I couldn’t read your lips if you said it fifteen times,” Sam mutters, starting towards the common area.

“Sam!” Steve says in greeting, waving him down before spotting Yevgeny.

“Everything alright?” Clint asks, and Yevgeny nods.

Probably better _not_  to mention that Bruce just gave him something without checking with either Clint or Nat.

“How’s the arm?” Steve asks, noting that Sam’s decided to stand by Clint rather than taking a seat directly across from the spaced out amnesiac at the table.

“Fine. Sore. I got fourteen stitches, and apparently I’m going to have a hell of a scar.”

“Women love scars,” Clint notes, and Natasha lets out a snort.

“Scars?” Mumbles the Asset, and Yevgeny takes that as his cue to move over, taking a seat beside him.

The Asset turns to stare at him a moment, then turns to stare at everyone else, frowning at Sam before turning back to Yevgeny.

“Did I stab him?” He asks, clearly unsure.

Yevgeny glances to Steve, who grimaces.

“Slashed. In self defense,” Steve clarifies, and the Asset frowns.

“I think I remember,” he mutters.

“That’s good,” Steve says, before realizing exactly what he just said. “That you remembered. Not slashing him.”

“He knows,” Nat says quietly, and Yevgeny grunts in agreement. The Asset is _damaged_ , not _dead_.

“Well, he hasn’t tried to stab anyone, so I’m saying this is an improvement,” Sam quips.

“Not helping, Sam,” Steve says, frowning at him.

Clint lets out a little sigh.

“Alright, my turn with Yev. Shouldn’t have even let you sit down,” he says, giving Natasha a quick look.

Yevgeny doesn’t know what the look _means,_ but he knows it means something.

“Yev?” The Asset says, glancing towards him as he goes to stand.

Yevgeny isn’t sure if he’s just repeating things, or if he actually understands that he’s leaving for a moment.

 _I’ll be back soon_ , he mouths, and the Asset stares at him for a moment before finally nodding.

 _That_  part at least is clearly understanding.

Clint waits until they’re out of the room, but he doesn’t go far before turning back to Yevgeny.

“I’m leaving tomorrow. I have a mission--just for a few days. Are you going to be alright?”

Yevgeny feels a stab of immediate frustration with Clint, and then it very rapidly becomes frustration about himself. It makes sense that Clint would have to leave at times. He would have missions and tasks and things that were _not_ Yevgeny, and he wasn’t a child who needed constant watching anyway.

He bit back his feelings and gave a little nod, trying to ignore the look of concern on Clint’s face.

“I’ll bring you something back, alright?” Clint says, and Yevgeny nods again.

Clint pats him on the shoulder and turns back, and Yevgeny takes a moment to calm his breathing before following him back in.

“Where’s my arm?” The Asset asks when he sits down, turning to glance at the space where his left arm should be before turning back to Yevgeny.

Yevgeny isn’t entirely sure what to tell him, and decides that the truth is probably the best.

 _Upstairs. It was dangerous, so they took it,_ he mouths.

“Think he’ll be able to speak Russian once he’s better?” Steve asks, glancing between them.

Yevgeny shrugs.

“Probably,” Nat replies as Clint excuses himself to go and pack.

“Are you _aware_  of how awkward this is Steve? And you’re concerned that he might lose his ability to speak _Russian?_ ” Sam says, sounding incredulous.

“Does he even know where he is?” He adds, glancing over to where the Asset sits.

Yevgeny isn’t sure, and he decides to ask. The Asset’s still looking at him, and it’s easy enough.

 _Do you know where you are?_ , he asks.

The Asset takes a long time to answer.

“America?”

Yevgeny couldn’t have named the city if _he_  tried, so he supposes it’s good enough.

 _Do you know who I am?_ , he continues.

This question takes a lot longer to answer, and Steve spends the entire glancing between the two of them as Sam and Natasha look on.

“You aren’t Steve,” he says quietly. “You’re...” he trails off for a long moment, clearly struggling. “You were there. When I was there. You had a gun.”

It’s fragmented and confusing, but it’s better.

Yevgeny nods.

 _And him?_ , he asks finally, gesturing towards his original.

The Asset looks between them, obviously unclear on the whole thing.

“Steve?” He finally says.

Steve looks relieved to hear it.

“Yeah, Buck. I’m Steve,” he says, reaching out to give the Asset’s shoulder a squeeze.

Yevgeny freezes as he watches, expecting the Asset to react, to lash out. He doesn’t though--just looks confused, staring down at the hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, are we having a touchy feely moment?” Tony calls from the door as he strides in, Thor following him closely behind. Steve withdraws his hand immediately, glowering at Tony.

“Sam!” Thor calls, smiling at him.

The room suddenly seems very full, and Yevgeny sinks slightly.

He misses Clint already, and he hasn’t even left.

Tony proves to have no respect for personal space, because he immediately walks over, running his hand through Yevgeny’s hair.

“You need a -” He starts, stopping abruptly when the Assets hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist and squeezing.

The Asset looks _murderous_.

 _I’m fine_ , Yevgeny mouths hurriedly, signalling _okay_  to go along with it. It isn’t enough though, and he reaches up, tapping the Asset’s cheek. He isn’t looking, but the touch makes him stir, eyes shifting down.

 _Let go_ , Yevgeny mouths, his gaze firm.

The Asset lets go.

“A haircut,” Tony finishes, reaching down to rub at his wrist. “And a less protective guard dog.”

“Tony-” Steve starts, and Tony throws his hands in the air.

“Alright, alright, I get it. Shame on me for interrupting bonding time with the twins.”

“I thought he was a clone?” Says Thor, glancing between Steve and Yevgeny. “You should not tease them either way, Tony.”

Tony lets out a sigh.

“I must admit I’m feeling a bit ganged up on, so I’m going to go hang out with Bruce. At least _he_  plays nice,” Tony says, starting to leave. “Call me when you want to hear about the cool new arm I just made.”


	43. Chapter 43

The _cool new arm_  turns out to be for the Asset, which shouldn’t be a surprise and yet somehow is. From what little he knows of Tony, the possibility of him simply deciding to _make new arms_  for the entire team sounds perfectly plausible.

“Barnes needs an arm,” Tony explains in a manner that seems oddly reminiscent of the way that Bruce talked about his _own_  exciting project. “As funny as it is watching him waddle around without one, it _is_  rather cruel. So he needs an arm. An arm that _can’t_ be used to murder people any better than his usual fleshy arm, for the record.”

Yevgeny doesn’t see the point in giving him a normal _human_  arm.

“It matches, for the record. And it’s extra durable, not extra strong. I deal with metal, not flesh, so there’s no fake skin on it yet. And this is just a stopgap, not a final measure, because I’m going to have to peel all that metal out of his shoulder to do anything better.”

“Tony,” Steve interrupts. “We get it, it’s a good arm.”

Tony lets out a sigh.

“You have no flair for the dramatic, Cap.”

Yevgeny squints at the arm when Tony finally wheels it out. It looks... well, it looks exactly like the Assets old arm, only the glove and the red star are missing.

“Did you just repurpose his old arm?” Natasha asks.

Tony looks deeply offended.

“No, of course not. I repurposed the _shell_ and some of the tactile internals. They had some excellent metalworking done, and there was no point in reinventing the wheel. Turns out the outer layer is at least partially vibranium, which is going to be better than anything I can cook up on short notice.”

“And what if he _needs_  that arm?” Steve asks. “The old one. What if aliens swoop out of the sky and we need him to be able to defend himself?”

Yevgeny thinks the very idea sounds ridiculous, and glowers at his original.

“He’s not going to, obviously. And by the time aliens decide to visit us again, he’ll have a new arm, problem solved.”

“Sounds short sighted,” Natasha says. 

Tony lets out a sigh.

“I build a super cool robot arm that will interface with his truly awful 1960′s arm port, and all I get is _sass_ ,” Tony complains.

Yevgeny glances up at Tony, squinting.

 _Will it work?,_ he mouths.

“Next step, building the squirt a subvocal microphone so that I don’t have to look at someone else every time I want to know what he says,” Tony says, and glances towards Nat.

“He probably wants you get it over with and try the arm out,” Natasha says.

“That was _not_  what he said, for the record,” Tony says, turning back to the table.

The fact that he can pick the arm up with one hand makes Yevgeny raise an eyebrow.

“It’s lighter. Oh, did I mention that? Because his old arm took two of us to lift, so this one’s lighter. It’ll take some adjusting. Sit down,” Tony says, all in a rush, the last bit to the Asset.

The Asset looks confused, and glances between Yevgeny and Steve in turn.

“Go for it, Buck,” Steve says, and the Asset hesitates for a moment before moving over and sitting down.

Tony wastes no time in peeling the hospital gown off the Asset’s upper half, exposing the metal of his arm.

Yevgeny’s seen it plenty of times and doesn’t even blink, but Sam lets out a very quiet curse.

“This is going to hurt quite a bit, fair warning,” Tony says about five seconds before he presses the arm into the socket.

The Asset lets out a cry of pain, the fingers of his human arm clenching into a fist as his entire body shakes.

Steve looks like he’s just been punched, and is almost immediately at his side, grabbing his hand.

“Hold on there, it’ll be over in a second,” he says, sounding pained.

“More like fifteen,” Tony mutters under his breath.

Yevgeny doesn’t react.

Natasha’s eyes dance between Yevgeny and the man on the table, but she says nothing.

The pain is over before long, and the Asset sags back in the chair, panting heavily.

“See? All done. Hurts like hell going in, it’ll hurt like hell coming out, but it’s better. Works like a normal arm. Works _better_  than your old arm, at least for tasks that don’t involve punching through walls.”

“I hurt people with that arm,” the Asset mumbles.

“So you did,” Tony replies.

Yevgeny wonders, not for the first time, if the Asset realizes quite how _many_  people he hurt.

Probably not. And it’s probably for the better.

The Asset stirs slightly, then flexes the new arm, balling his new fingers into a fist and then relaxing them again.

 _How does it feel?_ Yevgeny asks when the Asset looks up at him.

“Intense,” the Asset mumbles. “I can feel everything.”

“Mmm, too many finer sensations at once. Probably overwhelming,” Tony says. Without asking he circles around, reaching up to pop open a panel on the back of the arm, poking and fidgeting.

“Better?”

The Asset shifts, looking uncomfortable, but flexes his hand again before nodding.

He seems more _together_ , but watching him is almost hard. He isn’t the same person he was the last time he woke up. He wasn’t even a person at all then.

Now he’s a person, and Yevgeny doesn’t know what to do about it.

“Can I go?” The Asset suddenly asks, and his body language makes it clear he’s uncomfortable. Yevgeny can’t tell if it’s Stark, the lab, or his new arm, but _something_  is bothering him.

The Asset doesn’t get bothered. But the man in the chair clearly is.

He nods, and the Asset is on his feet and on his way out of the lab before Yevgeny has time to even respond properly.

He goes after him, and Steve does as well.


	44. Chapter 44

Yevgeny has practice keeping pace with the Asset moving at full speed, and he’s certainly moving at full speed. His arm hangs at his side as if it never left, but it’s obvious enough that it’s different for _him_ , because he keeps having to adjust his balance.

He’s also obviously not clear where he’s going--simply walking for the hell of it.

Eventually he seems to decide that he’s walked far enough and leans heavily against the wall, his head hanging and his breathing coming in gasps as he sinks down until he’s squatting on the floor.

Whatever is happening can’t be good, and Yevgeny glances behind himself as he approaches to find that Steve’s nearby, and both Natasha and Tony are only just a bit behind that.

He wonders, for a moment, where Sam went, and then decides that it isn’t important at the moment.

He bends down so that he’s on his knees, reaching up to lightly tap the Asset on the knee so that he looks up.

He does, and his eyes are more focused than Yevgeny’s ever seen them, even if they are wide and confused.

“They’re going to wipe me,” he mumbles. “I don’t want - I’ll forget.”

The lab, Yevgeny decides. The lab and having Tony move around him like a tech set him off.

 _You aren’t going to be reset_ , Yevgeny mouths to him. _You don’t need resetting_.

The Asset clearly doesn’t believe him.

“I’m broken, I remember things, they’re going to wipe me,” he mumbles, reaching his hands up to squeeze at his own head as if trying to prevent his skull from popping.

The Asset isn’t looking at him, and not for the first time Yevgeny wishes he could still talk. Everything would be so much _easier_  if he could just tell him things while he had his eyes closed.

He reaches up to touch the Asset’s cheek, and the Asset lets out a little noise of pain, turning his head away.

“They’re going to wipe me,” he says again.

Yevgeny isn’t good at comforting. He doesn’t know how. He’s never had to before, and _certainly_  not with the Asset, so instead he glances over his shoulder, giving his original a pleading look.

His original gets the idea, walking over carefully before crouching down.

“It’s alright Buck. No one’s going to wipe you. You’re not going to get wiped ever again, alright? You can just be you,” he says quietly, reaching out to rub at the Asset’s back.

Yevgeny feels like he should be taking notes as he watches, letting his hands drop.

Natasha’s only a few feet back, and when Yevgeny glances to her she signals for him to come.

Yevgeny squints, unclear when she learned that hand sign, but gets up and heads towards her. There’s no point in trying to tell the Asset that he’ll be back soon--the Asset’s clearly not looking at him anyway.

“Give Steve some time,” she says softly. “It might help a bit to remind him that he’s not with HYDRA. Tony wanted to talk to you back in the lab.”

Yevgeny nods and heads off without another word, easily winding his way back to the lab. He’s always been good at directions, and the entire tower is laid out in a manner that’s _far_  easier to wrap his head around than any HYDRA base.

Yevgeny supposes it would probably be much easier to assault, but doubts that fact was taken into consideration.

“The kid wonder returns,” Tony comments, leaning over what initially looks like a stack of metal before Yevgeny examines it a bit more closely, realizing that it’s almost definitely at least _part_  of the internals of the Asset’s arm.

Yevgeny scowls at him.

“For the record, I meant what I said about the microphone. Little electrodes right here,” Tony explains, tapping the sides of his neck. “It’ll modulate a voice for you and then everyone can just hear what you’re saying without having to take a degree in spying and learning how to read lips.”

Yevgeny immediately shakes his head _no_ , and Tony squints at him, looking slightly incredulous.

“Alright, I know there’s a first time for everything, but _why_  exactly are you turning down a clear quality of life improvement?”

Yevgeny has a list of reason a half a mile long, but eventually settles on the biggest one.

 _I’ve tried it before,_ he mouths. _It didn’t work_.

Tony stares very, very intensely at his mouth before snorting abruptly.

“You’ve either tried it before or you really want a smore, one or the other.”

Yevgeny doesn’t know what a smore is, but he rolls his eyes anyway.

“Well, your loss, don’t come crawling back to me when you suddenly want to appreciate the majesty of the new subvocal microphone I cooked up,” Tony says, waving him off.

Yevgeny takes that as his cue to leave and immediately turns, heading back to the Asset.

A waste of time. Even if Natasha told him to give them space, Yevgeny’s stomach does a flip at the idea of being so far away for so long.

By the time he makes it back, the Asset is sitting on the floor, looking slightly dazed but clearly less panicked. Steve is sitting beside him, and even at a distance he can tell that they’re talking quietly.

He stops short, standing beside Natasha.

“They’re swapping stories,” Nat says quietly. “It might be better to leave them for a bit.”

It’s the last thing Yevgeny wants to hear, but he nods anyway.


	45. Chapter 45

For the most part, Yevgeny hangs back. The Asset seems to do better with Steve sitting beside him, and even when the two get up and walk back to the common area--probably to find a more comfortable way to sit--he simply stays with Natasha.

He understands, suddenly, how she and Clint must have felt watching him interact with the Asset from the sidelines.

The Asset’s improvement is obvious, even after only forty-eight hours. He still occasionally stops mid-conversation, confused, and he still mixes things up, but he’s _better_. He’s not a mindless husk.

“He’s reverting to how he was,” Natasha explains softly. “He was more like this after he left HYDRA, but we couldn’t find him. When you brought him in, he reset back to his programming, but it was only temporary.”

Yevgeny simply nods.

They eat, and Thor joins them. Eventually he asks about Sam.

 _Where did Sam go?,_ he mouths, looking at Natasha.

She pauses for a moment, then glances towards the door.

“Home for the day, he was only visiting.”

Yevgeny doesn’t quite understand.

 _Doesn’t he live here?_ , he asks, and Natasha shakes her head.

“He has a home separate from us. He’s not officially an Avenger--just a friend who comes to visit.”

Yevgeny doesn’t understand that either, but he nods anyway.

Dinner finishes uneventfully, and then Natasha--seemingly in charge of the entire thing--declares that it’s time to sleep. Yevgeny’s happy for it, exhausted emotionally from the day's events, and makes no protest.

The Asset seems more hesitant.

“I’m bad at waking up,” he says softly. “I get confused.”

“We know,” Steve says in reply. “You’ll be fine. If you don’t come out of it on your own, Yevgeny will help you wake up.”

Yevgeny doesn’t remember being consulted on the point, but he supposes there’s no point in arguing. He _will_ help the Asset wake up if he needs it, even if no one asked him to.

The Asset turns to stare at him, and Yevgeny feels suddenly self conscious under the man’s gaze.

He’s never been self conscious before, but that’s almost undeniably what it is. He’s never had to worry about what the Asset thought of him before, but suddenly he does, and he cares a whole lot.

He wants, he decides, for the Asset to like him.

The entire idea of it--of the Asset  _liking_  him--is absurd. Insane. If someone had told the him of a year ago that he might one day care what the Asset thought of him he’d have laughed in their face, even if he wouldn’t have made a sound.

The Asset couldn’t have liked him any more than his gun could have liked him.

But the Asset isn’t quite the Asset anymore--he’s something new and different.

“He was with me, wasn’t he?” The Asset asks softly. “When I was there. With HYDRA.”

Steve nods carefully, obviously wary of the entire subject.

That works for Yevgeny, because he’s wary too.

“But he’s not HYDRA. Or he wouldn’t be here,” the Asset says, drawing his own conclusions and earning another nod from Steve.

“You should say hi,” Steve says. “You never got a real introduction.”

The Asset stares at Yevgeny for a moment longer before glancing back to Steve.

“What do I say?”

“You know who you are, right?” Steve asks, gesturing back towards Yevgeny. “Just... introduce yourself. Pretend like you don’t already know him and start out for the first time.”

The Asset takes his time, but finally does approach, stopping about a foot in front of him.

“I’m... Bucky. James Barnes,” he finally says, clearly unsure which name he’s supposed to go by.

 _Which one am I supposed to call you?_ , Yevgeny mouths, only earning himself more confusion.

“Bucky,” the Asset finally says.

Yevgeny nods, hesitating for a moment before deciding that he should probably introduce himself in turn.

 _I’m Yevgeny_ , he finally says. _I was your handler_.

The Asset--Bucky--takes a second, but finally nods.

“I remember. You were there. You had... you had red fingers.”

It’s the closest and most obvious sign that he _does_  remember, because Yevgeny’s suit had been abandoned long before he’d ever met Steve Rogers.

He nods.

“But...” Bucky says abruptly, staring down at him. “You were talking before. I remember. I didn’t - I didn’t dream that?”

It isn’t entirely clear if he’s actually remembering, or if he’s simply mixing Yevgeny up with his original’s early years. Yevgeny nods anyway, reaching up to run a hand down his throat.

“His vocal cords are gone, so he can’t talk now, Buck,” Steve explains quietly.

The Asset glances back at Steve for a moment, his face twisted with concern.

“I - I didn’t do that, right?”

Yevgeny almost laughs at the thought of it, which only serves to confuse the Asset more, and then he shakes his head.

“HYDRA did. It’s fine,” Steve says, reaching up to rest a hand on the Asset’s shoulder.

The Asset doesn’t even flinch at the touch, just looks up at him.

“We should all get some rest. It’s been a long day,” Natasha says suddenly.

Yevgeny startles a bit, and then settles down. Right. Bed. They were supposed to be going to sleep, and he nodded carefully, watching the Asset glance at him before nodding as well.


	46. Chapter 46

Yevgeny was _itchy_. His entire body felt itchy, but the worst of it was on his torso and arms, where the worst of his scarring was.

Healing, unfortunately, was itchy, and his entire body had decided all at once that he was long overdue for _lots_  of healing.

The worst of his scarring had always been on his torso, with scattered patches on his arms and legs. For the most part, his face had stayed unmarred, protected by his gear and not a significant target for punishment. If nothing else, it would make hiding his sudden healing a good deal easier, and he peeled off his shirt, pausing to flake away some dead skin around the edges of his scars, before pulling on a long sleeved shirt.

He would be a bit warm, but he could deal.

He’d always preferred heavy clothes anyway.

Of course, there was no way he’d be able to keep it hidden in the long term--if nothing else, Natasha would certainly notice Bruce inviting him off to his lab regularly--but it seemed smarter to put it off as long as possible.

However long _that_ was.

Yevgeny remained outside as they watched the Asset--Bucky, he reminded himself--stir in the room. He seemed to take _forever_  to wake, but at the very least there was no mention of missions or authentication.

“Is anyone watching?” The Asset finally called, staring up at the camera in the corner.

Natasha reached down, unlocking the door with a click, and Yevgeny darted ahead of his original to pull it open, popping his head in.

 _Alright?_ He mouthed, and earned an immediate nod.

“Better. My head hurts a bit. Yevgeny, right?” He asked, clearly wanting to double check.

Yevgeny nodded in return, stepping out of the doorway.

“Food seems like a good starting place,” Natasha says, gesturing down the hallway. “And then lessons.”

Yevgeny didn’t blink, but Steve did, turning back to Natasha.

“Lessons?” Steve says, obviously confused by the prospect.

“Yevgeny has received only basic lessons. He understands the modern day, but is only aware of a skewed, HYDRA-focused version of history and today’s society. Barnes understands what the world was like back in the forties, but probably only knows the utter basics of world since then. They need to get up to speed, and it’s easier to do it together,” Natasha explained, and Yevgeny scowled at her.

 _We know more than that_ , Yevgeny mouthed at her, and she raised an eyebrow.

“I... think I know things,” Bucky mumbles, but he doesn’t sound very sure of himself. “I went to the museum and looked everything.”

Yevgeny isn’t clear how much useful history could possibly be found in a museum, but he supposes that’s why Natasha is insisting on lessons.

The food is good, and the lessons, as it turns out, are equal parts boring and irritating.

Even though Natasha is only covering the utter basics, Yevgeny finds himself forced to argue almost every single point. He knows next to nothing before World War Two, and his version of World War Two turns out to be _very_  misleading.

The Asset, at least, seems to know all that stuff, and at one point even glances at Steve, squinting in his direction.

“I was there, wasn’t I?” He asks, earning a nod.

The Asset smiles a little bit at that, and the room’s attitude perks up.

“1945, Germany surrenders. The US drops the atomic bomb on Japan not once, but twice, and Japan surrenders. Immediately after, the Cold War begins between the United States and Soviet Union, setting off a series of smaller proxy wars,” Natasha continues, and Yevgeny can’t tell if he wants to argue or fall asleep more. It all feels cold and detached, things that happened before he was even born. The Cold War is at least _mildly_  interesting, and it’s far more immediately relevant, so he tries to focus on those bit as she continues.

“1946, the Philippines gains its independence from the US. 1947, the Truman Doctrine comes into effect, intended to fight communism within Greece and Turkey. At the same time, the Marshall Plan begins, intended to provide aid within Europe after the second world war. 1949, NATO is founded. 1950, the Korean war begins.”

Natasha pauses, glancing up, perhaps confused by the fact that Yevgeny’s stopped quibbling over every point. He simply shrugs--for the most part, the details are vague enough that they line up with what he knows, or else were glossed over entirely.

“1951 is the point where we have the first confirmed kill believed to have been done by the Winter Soldier, for the record. So that was probably the point where you became active,” she explains, nodding towards the Asset. “No word on Yevgeny, though, considering we didn’t know he existed until Sam found him in a coffee shop.”

Steve lets out a little snort.

“I hope you’re paying attention, Rogers. There’s going to be a test at the end.”

Yevgeny isn’t clear if she’s joking.

“1953, Korean war ends. 1954, racial segregation declared illegal. At the same time we had the Red Scare, which was the absolutely ludicrous period in US history where everyone was tripping over each other declaring each other communist sympathizers.”

Yevgeny strongly suspects that the history book Natasha is skimming through doesn’t _quite_  put things in those words.

“1957, Eisenhower Doctrine, 1959, Alaska and Hawaii become states, 1960, Kennedy elected, US spy plane shot down over the Soviet Union...” Natasha lets out a little snicker. “I learned _all_  about that one,” she adds, but doesn’t clarify further.

“You’re getting briefer the longer you go,” Steve notes with a frown. “This is the stuff that they actually need to know.”

Natasha simply shrugs.

“How many times in your daily life have you had to know when Alaska became a state? How many US citizens can even explain what the Eisenhower Doctrine _is_? They only need a summary, Steve.”

Steve obviously doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t protest further.

“1961, CIA tries to invade Cuba and fails, American troops sent into West Berlin. 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis happens, the world almost blows up, America at fault yet again-”

“I think your view of history might be a _little_  biased,” Steve cuts in, sounding irritated. “We should get Tony down here, he’s probably funded a half decent textbook at some point in his life.”

“He can teach history on his own time, but good luck prying him away from that arm,” Natasha says, flipping through a few more pages.

“1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom takes place, because American’s have no idea how to name anything, and then in November, US President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Lyndon Johnson takes over.”

The Asset makes a small little choked noise.

Yevgeny doesn’t make the very same noise both because he can’t, and because he has better control of that.

Natasha lets out a groan.

“ _Please_  tell me that noise wasn’t what I think it was,” Natasha mutters under her breath.

 _He used my rifle for that one_ , Yevgeny signs.

The Asset looks like he’s been punched in the gut, and Natasha lets out a little sigh.

“Let’s just quietly add that to the list of things that the US government never gets to find out about, alright?”

Yevgeny doesn’t see the issue and simply shrugs.

“I have - I have a question,” the Asset says, glancing up at Natasha for a moment before looking back at Steve.

“Hold on,” Natasha says simply, hopping up onto the back of a couch and reaching up to pin a small piece of metal up in the corner of the room.

Yevgeny has no idea where it even came from. As best he can tell it simply came out of the air itself.

But he can guess what it does.

“And rotate this way,” she says, moving herself around. “So they can’t read your lips later.”

Steve makes a small frustrated noise.

“Considering we just found out that they _killed a US president_ , I’m having a hard time imagining what skeleton in their closet could possibly be worse.”

Yevgeny agrees, but he trusts Natasha’s judgement.

“Is... is Tony related to Howard?” He asks, glancing back towards Steve.

Steve simply looks confused, while Natasha obviously stiffens.

If it’s bad enough that _Natasha_  is tense, Yevgeny decides that it must be particularly awful.

“Yeah. He’s his son,” Steve explains. “With Maria. I don’t think you ever met her--she was after our time.”

Bucky makes a very small _oh_ , glancing between the two of them again.

Yevgeny isn’t following.

“I think I killed them.”


	47. Chapter 47

Yevgeny squints as he glances between everyone. He isn’t _completely_  in the dark, but he isn’t sure if the Asset is actually right.

 _Do you have a picture?_  He mouths at Natasha.

“He looks like Stark. Strong family resemblance, only a mustache rather than a beard.”

The description doesn’t help Yevgeny in the slightest.

 _I was probably a half a kilometer away up a tree, you’d have to be more specific,_ he mouths.

“It was a car accident. I made it look like one,” he mumbles, obviously lost in thought. “You weren’t there I don’t think,” he adds, glancing back to Yevgeny.

Either he wasn’t there, or he just wasn’t _visible_. There’s no telling without a bit more detail.

“He said my name,” Bucky says sadly. “He knew who I was.”

“This is going to be an adventure,” Natasha mutters, and Steve glares at her.

“We need to find a way to tell Tony... nicely. Without him blaming Bucky.”

“Steve, please be realistic for a second. There’s pretty much no way to nicely let him know that he’s sheltering the man who killed his parents.”

“Then... I don’t know, what are we-” Steve continues, abruptly cutting himself off as the door swings open.

“You,” Tony started with a glare at Natasha, “are playing dirty. Why are you even carrying those around in the tower? One would _almost_  think that you went out of your way specifically to have something on hand to disable my security.”

Steve shifts none too subtly between the Asset--still sitting in the chair--and Tony.

Tony gives him a pointed look.

“If you’re trying to be subtle, Cap, you’re doing a bad job of it.”

There’s a deep and extremely obvious silence as Tony circles around the room, reaching up to pull Natasha’s device off the wall, flipping it over in his hand.

“Cute. But let’s cut to the point, shall we? Because I want to know what you’re all hiding.”

Tony’s eyes flick between each person in turn, and Yevgeny meets his stare with one of his own. He likes Tony well enough--he _did_  give Bucky his new arm--but in a choice between him and Bucky, there’s no question.

“Tony-” Natasha starts, and Tony jabs a finger at her.

“Not from you. I want to hear it from one of the guilty parties, not the only person in this room with a half decent poker face,” Tony snaps, before glancing back towards Yevgeny.

“Amended, from the only person with a half decent poker face _and red hair._ ”

Yevgeny’s poker face is decent, but at the moment it’s simply a matter of him not being _that_  concerned about things. Not really. He doesn’t feel bad about what happened, and he doesn’t feel terribly guilty either.

He simply _is_.

“No sudden confessions?”

“Tony,” Steve starts, frowning at him. “We should be having this conversation as a subdued, sit down conversation, not when you’re already upset.”

“Which means you think that whatever you have to say is going to make me _more_  upset,” Tony says, hitting the nail right on the head.

“Tony-”

“No, Steve, we’re having this conversation now. I’m not going to spend the rest of the day wondering just what it is you’ve decided to hide from me. So what _exactly_ did Barnes do?”

Steve looks shocked, which makes it that much more obvious that the Asset _is_  involved, but Yevgeny can tell how he knows. His original is making a far too obvious show of standing between them, keeping the Asset hidden.

Yevgeny feels his stomach sink as Bucky pushes himself to his feet, turning around.

“I should just tell him,” Bucky says quietly. “He deserves to know.”

“He doesn’t need to know anything-” Steve starts, only to be cut off by Tony.

“Butt out, Steve.”

Yevgeny has only a single idea. The entire situation is going over his head, interpersonal politics in play from long, long before he arrived. But he knows at least one thing that might work, and he furiously signals to the Asset over Tony’s shoulder.

 _Do not engage. Do not return fire_.

He doesn’t know for _sure_  it will work, but it’s the best idea he has.

The Asset doesn’t drag it out any longer than he has to.

“I think I’m the one who killed your parents,” he says.

Yevgeny winces.

The reaction is both immediate and extreme. Tony lets out a cry of anger as he lashes out, at the same time Steve lunges at him, trying to knock him to the ground. The Asset goes down, and to his credit, doesn’t try and fight back. He simply lands hard, watching as Steve tries to hold Tony back.

Everyone is yelling all at once, but the Asset simply sits there, looking dazed.

“When were you going to tell me, Steve? At what point were you going to bring this up, exactly?” Tony yells, and Steve wastes no time in yelling right back.

“He didn’t _choose_  to do anything, Tony! You can blame HYDRA all you want, but I’m not letting you blame him for any of this.”

Yevgeny feels oddly detached from the situation. It isn’t about him. He wasn’t there, most likely. All the dramatics, all the arguments--none of it feels terribly real to him.

“Yevgeny?” Natasha asks, bending down and waving a hand in front of his face. She’s concerned, he recognizes, but it feels very, very far away.


	48. Chapter 48

Natasha is done. She is done with the yelling. She is done with the arguing. She is done with the confused assassin sitting on the floor, and she is done with the sniper who’s dissociating where he sits.

She takes a moment to be thankful she doesn’t have access to a grenade.

Neither Steve nor Tony are looking at her, entirely wrapped up in their own argument.

She kicks Steve in the head.

It isn’t even a terribly _good_  kick, but Steve is absolutely not prepared for any sort of assault from the side. Tony jerks back, looking equal parts confused and surprised, and Steve goes down like a bag of potatoes.

Natasha spins, grabbing Tony by the front of his shirt, shoving him backwards with her as she walks.

“You are leaving the room,” she snaps, and Tony’s own anger returns with a vengeance.

“You think I’m going to let _him_  stay in _my_  tower? He murdered my parents!” He yells, slapping her hand away.

“I heard yelling,” comes Thor’s voice from the door, and Natasha is so happy she could kiss him.

“Thor, take Tony and take him downstairs,” she snaps, giving Tony a hard shove towards the confused Asgardian.

Thor stares at her for a moment, but when Tony lunges back towards her--or more accurately towards the men behind her--he reaches out, grabbing Tony by the arm.

“Oh no,” Tony snaps, rounding on the man. “We are not doing this.”

Natasha has already turned away to where Steve is sitting up on the floor, rubbing at the side of his head. It’s already bruising, which Natasha supposes means that it’s already healing.

“Why did you kick _me_?” He mutters under his breath.

“Because you’d get back up. If I kicked _Tony_  in the head while he wasn’t expecting it, I might have broken his neck.”

Steve is still rubbing at his head, but appears to have taken it in stride.

“I will return later, once Stark has calmed down!” Thor calls, physically removing Tony from the room. Nat doesn’t think it’s going to work in the long term, but it’s certainly better than having him in the room right now.

“We’re going to need to leave before he gets back,” Natasha mutters under her breath.

She glances down to look at Barnes, but he’s already gone, moving over to where Yevgeny sits, staring into space. Barnes looks concerned as he crouches down in front of the man who was once his handler.

“He’s dissociating, Barnes. Has he done this before?”

She strongly suspects that he has, but she doubts that the Winter Soldier was ever paying enough attention to his handler to notice it.

Barnes simply shrugs.

“I don’t think so,” he says, turning back to Yevgeny.

“Is he going to be okay?” Steve asks, pushing himself to his feet and heading over to the boy.

The arguing has stopped, and Yevgeny stirs slightly, glancing up at them.

“Alright, time to go,” Nat says, gesturing for Barnes to get up. “He can walk. We can go to a safe house nearby, and we’ll give Tony some time to calm down. If we need to, we can move to a better house, but for now, let’s roll before Thor lets go of him.”

As far as she’s concerned, it’s not up for debate, but Barnes looks at her, confused.

“I should stay. He’s angry at me.”

Steve lets out an angry grunt.

“He’s angry at everyone. And he’s angry at the wrong person, anyway. You didn’t decide to hurt anyone. HYDRA did, and I’m not letting you take the fall for them.”

Natasha lets out an angry grunt of her own.

“None of this matters. You can have your ethical debates _after_  we’re all out of the building.”

She glances down to Yevgeny and decides that he’s being too slow to wake.

“ _On your feet, soldier. Follow,”_ she says quickly in Russian, and Yevgeny is on his feet in a moment, blinking up at her in confusion.

“Do you have everything?” She asks, dropping back to English as he nods his head, the worst over. His hand squeezes something in his pocket, and Natasha decides it’s better to ask _after_  they’ve left.

Steve’s forced to split off to get his own stuff, and Natasha has both Yevgeny and Barnes follow close behind her. There’s no sign of Tony, but there’s no sign of anyone else either, and she turns every corner expecting to find him waiting.

They take the stairs.

“At least you’re wearing normal clothes,” she mutters, mostly to herself, eyeing the pair of them. They’ll stick out, but not that much worse than any other person from New York.

Steve’s waiting for them at the bottom.

“You took the elevator?” She asks, turning away quickly. “Nevermind, I don’t care. Let's get out of here and back to the safehouse, and then I’m going to have to call a bunch of people. I need Bruce playing defense. before Thor lets Tony free.”

“Bruce? Do you really think he’s going to take our side on this?” Steve asks, glancing behind them to where Yevgeny and Barnes have fallen into step.

“No, but he should be able to keep Stark from hitting the nuclear option in this situation.”

The worst case scenario--the _absolute_  worst case scenario--is that Stark goes straight to the government and tells them what he knows. She can’t imagine a happy ending to that, can’t imagine a situation where the government decides that Barnes has already suffered enough and gives him a pass on the murder of a president.

Better to hope that he doesn’t.

The safehouse is an almost thirty minute walk away, a small apartment in a run down looking building. She has to verify through three different security systems before she can get inside, flagging them all in before closing the door.

It isn’t very large, but it’ll do.

“Are you alright?” Barnes asks, and she has to turn around to realize that he’s looking at Yevgeny, who looks completely fine.

Yevgeny looks up at him, obviously confused.

 _Okay_ , he signals.

“You weren’t good with it before,” Barnes mumbles. “You handle long distances well.”

Yevgeny shifts ever so slightly, and Natasha watches him like a hawk.

 _Okay_ , he signals again.

“I had asthma, it’s probably that,” Steve mentions.

“I need to call Bruce... and I need to call Clint. He’s not due back for a few days, but the last thing I want is him calling the tower to check up and getting an angry Tony on the phone.”

She leaves them in the living room and ducks into the bedroom to make the call.


	49. Chapter 49

Bruce is staring at one of his files when the phone rings. For a moment, he doesn’t even realize that it _is_  his phone, but it’s impossible to miss the phone suddenly blasting the _Jaws_  theme.

He rolls his chair over to find the source of the sound, digging through the pile of Tony’s stuff before finding it near the bottom.

“Hello?”

“Bruce?”

Bruce’s eyebrows go up immediately, because as far as he knows Natasha is a floor away at most.

“...Can’t you just get Jarvis to let me know you needed to talk?” He asks, staring up at the ceiling as if expecting to see a flashing 404 on it.

“I’m out of the building, so no. Are you still in your lab?”

Bruce glances guiltily down to the stack of vials in front of him before spinning the chair around.

“Yeah, why?”

“I’ll save you the smalltalk, since this is time sensitive. Turns out that Tony’s parents were killed by HYDRA, and Barnes was the one who did it.”

Bruce goes silent for a moment, trying to process just how much of a mess the entire situation is.

“I assume you’ve gone somewhere safe and secure with Barnes?”

“And Yevgeny. Steve’s here too.”

“I assumed that went without saying,” he muttered, quickly tidying his desk before standing up.

“I see why you called. Do you know where he is?”

“With Thor. But that isn’t the reason I called.”

Bruce stops walking, staring at the phone for a moment.

“Why is it that trouble always comes in batches, exactly? Was Tony finding this information out not bad enough?” He complains, reaching up to rub at his temple.

“Barnes was _also_ the man who shot JFK,” she adds.

Bruce lets out a small groan of frustration.

“Does Tony know?”

“Yes.”

Bruce is having a hard time picturing a worse situation, but after a moment he decides how: Thor could not be there.

“I’m going to go find Thor and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

He doesn’t bother to say goodbye, simply hangs up and shoves the phone in his pocket as he heads out of the lab.

He finds Tony sitting, of all places, in the common area, kicked back on the couch and staring at the ceiling. Bafflingly, Thor is sitting beside him, but they don’t appear to be fighting at all.

“Is he alright?” He asks Thor, pointing his finger towards Tony.

“I’m right here,” Tony snaps, turning his head to glare at him. “I can only assume you were _called_?”

“Natasha was concerned about you,” Bruce says, deciding that it’s only a half lie. It certainly wasn’t her _primary_  concern, but she wasn’t heartless either.

“Tony is resting,” Thor confides. “And upset. He feels quite betrayed by the actions of the others.”

“I’m having a hard time picturing a situation where I would _not_  feel betrayed over the fact that they weren’t going to tell me,” Tony mutters.

Bruce isn’t _completely_  aware of the situation, but if it’s true he’s having a hard time disagreeing.

“I’m sure they’d have told you eventually,” he finally says, and Tony lets out a snort.

“I’m not sure why you’d think Steve would put the well being of others even _slightly_  ahead of Barnes.”

Bruce can’t disagree with _that_ , either.

“Natasha would have,” he finally says.

Tony lets out a grunt and rolls onto his side, staring at the back of the couch instead.

There’s a long silence.

“She didn’t die in a car accident,” Tony mutters, almost to himself. “I looked it up years ago. They found signs of suffocation and bruising on her throat. At the time it slipped under the radar because there wasn’t another explanation, and because HYDRA shoved it down. I wanted SHIELD to reopen the case, but they refused since there was no evidence.”

The guilt is obvious.

“It was long done by then, Tony. Nothing you’ve done could have undone it. Even if you’d forced them to reopen the case, what then? HYDRA would just have targeted you for digging too deep.”

“Then maybe I could have done something. Lots of people died when HYDRA tried to launch Project Insight. If I’d dug around sooner, I might have stumbled upon the whole mess _before_  they launched. Maybe all those people wouldn’t be dead.”

“Tony-” Bruce starts, but Thor cuts in instead.

“You accepted what people told you as the truth. It is not wrong to trust others, and you cannot fault yourself for doing so.”

“I should have known,” Tony mumbles.

“And yet you did not. You did the best that you could. You trusted others. Your trust was misplaced, and yet it would still be foolish to refuse to trust again. Do you believe that Steve’s friend truly wished your parents dead, that he sought them out to kill them?”

Bruce immediately decides that he doesn’t give Thor _nearly_  enough credit.

He can’t see Tony’s face, but he can watch Tony’s back, and it’s obvious that he’s squirming, struggling to come up with something to say that fits his point.

“No,” he finally admits. “But that doesn’t make me feel any better. He still did.”

Bruce knows exactly what to say. All he has to do is point out that _he_  did a lot of things--big green, really--and the argument is over. There’s no way for Tony to blame Barnes for what he did as the Winter Soldier without _also_  blaming Bruce for what he’s done as the Hulk.

He doesn’t want to that to him. The last thing he wants is to emotionally manipulate Tony while he’s already down.

Thor saves him from having to.

“We all do things that we regret later. What matters is what we do to make up for them.”

“Do you know how hard it is to be angry when you’re sitting there reminding me that I’m supposed to be the better man? I don’t _want_ to be the better man,” Tony complains, his voice bitter and angry.

“And yet you are,” Thor replies.

Tony lets out a groan, reaching up to grab a pillow off the couch and burying his head under it.

Bruce takes that as a sign the conversation is over.

“I should go let Nat know,” he says quietly, giving Thor a quick glance. “Thanks, though.”

He’s halfway across the room before Tony pops his head out from under the pillow.

“I don’t want him back here. He can go sit his ass in a safehouse for all I care,” he calls back, but doesn’t bother to roll over.

“We’ll give you some time,” Bruce says, glancing between Tony and Thor for a moment before deciding that Thor was doing just fine.


	50. Chapter 50

It is not the first time Yevgeny has been in a safehouse, but he hopes it will be the last.

He’s never quite comfortable in safe houses, because being in a safehouse immediately implies that one is _not_  safe. Being in a safehouse just means that at any point someone could come crashing through a window with a gun.

Even though he doesn’t _really_  think that Tony is going to shoot through a window, he can’t quite make himself sit still.

He checks the door, which is definitely reinforced. He checks the windows, and at first glance he mistakenly thinks they’re just _windows_. A second glance confirms that he’s mistaken, because they’re heavy duty bulletproof glass.

The windows don’t look into anyone else's windows, just the flat wall of the building on the other side of the alley. They do, however, look just over a fire escape--far enough down that no one could climb up any easier than climbing up from the ground, but a quick and easy drop even for an ordinary human.

He pulls the curtains closed again before ducking into the kitchen, giving the Asset and his original only a quick glance. The Assets taken up a spot on the floor, staring into space blankly, and Steve’s sprawled out on the couch, looking exhausted.

Natasha’s still in the room, talking on the phone.

Yevgeny ducks into the kitchen, working his way down his mental checklist. There seem to be an endless supply of cans but very little in the way of _variety_ , and after counting them out he decides they have enough for three, maybe four months.

He doesn’t think they’ll be there for anything close, but being prepared for the inevitable-in-his-own-mind hail of bullets coming through the window helps.

He revises his estimate to eight months when he opens the closet and finds even more boxes.

Most of them are canned beets.

He counts everything again twice before he hears the bedroom door open, immediately dropping the can in his hand (green beans) and ducking back into the living area.

The entire safehouse is four rooms. There’s a living room (plain, but the largest), a bedroom, the kitchen, and then a bathroom. Yevgeny has always preferred smaller safe houses, but he suspects Steve will think it’s a bit cramped.

Steve seems like that kind of person to him.

“I talked to Bruce, he’s going to try and handle Tony. And I talked to Clint--he said he was going to come back, but I told him to finish up there. Anything that’ll happen here is going to be done before he has time to get back,” Natasha says.

Yevgeny thinks it’s a bit weird he’s not coming back, but he doesn’t protest. Maybe the mission is important. Or maybe Natasha just thinks that Tony won’t be mad for long.

Probably the former.

“I’m going to get some fresh food and check back at the tower. If I can, I’ll get some changes of clothes,” she adds. She doesn’t give anyone a chance to argue, either, just says her goodbyes and leaves, effectively sealing them in.

The safehouse is quiet.

Yevengy forces himself not to pace, stepping over to where the Asset sits, staring into space, and then sits down in front of him.

Steve cracks an eye open to look at him, but doesn’t say anything more.

He reaches up to touch the Asset’s cheek and bring him back to reality, and the man’s eyes slowly refocus as he looks up.

“Were you always there?” He asks, and Yevgeny has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about.

 _What?_ He signals, dropping his hand away from the Asset’s face.

“With HYDRA. Did they take you away from someone...?”

It takes him a moment to get it, to follow along the Asset’s endlessly confusing logic. 

 _No_ , he mouths. _I was born there. I didn’t have anyone but you._

The Asset--Bucky--frowns at that.

“I remember you were... you grew up,” he starts, glancing towards Steve. “But then you got small again, and grew up again. But I don’t remember you being... being any smaller than this big.” He lifts his hand to about four feet off the ground, staring at his own hand for a moment before glancing back to Yevgeny.

He obviously seems to think that Yevgeny has all the answers.

 _You’re thinking of Steve. And then it was me. But we didn’t meet until I was eight,_ he mouths, clarifying as best he can.

“Sorry,” Bucky says, his voice cracking as he does so. “I can... I can mostly remember things after the bridge. After the helicarrier. But before that, everything's all... mixed.”

Yevgeny wasn’t there. He doesn’t know what the bridge is, or when the Asset was ever deployed on a helicarrier, but he can take a guess.

 _That was probably the last time you were wiped_ , he mouths.

“Wiped?” Bucky says, and then shudders involuntarily.

It probably isn’t a pleasant memory, if it’s a memory at all.

“We should talk about something else,” Steve says from the couch, rolling onto his side to face them. He looks tired--exhausted, really--and Yevgeny wonders if Natasha shouldn’t have called Sam or someone for _him_.

“Like what?” Bucky seems at a loss for what they could possibly talk about.

“What’s the earliest thing you remember?”

Bucky takes a moment to come up with a memory.

“Its... hard. They’re out of order. I remember cookies. Your mom made me cookies one time, because I’d brought you back home. Someone had given you a black eye, and I brought you home, and then the next day your mom had made cookies for me, and she kept insisting it wasn’t because I’d brought you back...”

Yevgeny doesn’t really _get it_ , but Steve obviously does, because his face twists into a smile at the nearly nonsensical story.

“Yeah, pretty much. She didn’t want to _thank_  you for watching out for me, because I’d have upset over it. I didn’t want anyone watching out for me,” Steve explains. “What else?”

Bucky shifts in place.

“Was I... in the army? Before HYDRA. Before they started... all that. I remember having a gun, but it was all different. It wasn’t the same.”

Steve nods at that too.

“You were in the 107th. Then you got captured, and after that you were part of the Howling Commandos.”

None of the terms mean anything to Yevgeny, but he listens anyway.

“I remember. There was a museum...” Bucky says, trailing off, and Steve jumps in, obviously trying to prompt him to continue.

“There is. In DC. The Smithsonian has a whole exhibit about... well, me. But there’s a whole section about the Howling Commandos. You’re in there too.”

“They said I was dead,” Bucky mumbles. “I thought I was. I got confused.”

Steve nods again.

“They thought that about me, too. But I’m not, and you’re not. I think you’d do better if you saw it again. You’re more... clear headed than you probably were.”

Bucky nods at that too, then glances back to Yevgeny.

“He wouldn’t be in there, would he?”

Yevgeny wants to laugh at the thought of anything about _him_  being in a museum.

“No,” Steve says quietly. “But he’d probably look like some of the pictures. The younger ones of me.”

“Because he’s...” Bucky turns to stare at Yevgeny, clearly trying to figure out exactly where he fits in his new mental model. “A... small you?”

“A clone,” Steve clarifies. “That HYDRA made. So he looks like me, but he’s not me. He doesn’t remember the things that happened.”

“Oh,” Bucky says after a moment, seeming to accept the explanation.

“Why don’t we go?” Steve finally says, clearly trying to ease the transition. “We could drive down there. It’s a bit of a drive, but we could easily get there and back in a day.”

Yevgeny has an instinctive feeling that Natasha isn’t going to like it, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“We could all go, and you could take a look,” Steve adds. “It might help.”

Bucky doesn’t say yes right away, but he doesn’t say no either. After a long moment of silence, he finally does nod.

“Okay.”


	51. Chapter 51

Natasha, to Yevgeny’s shock, says yes. Yes to the museum trip. Yes to them taking the car she’s parked just up the street. He isn’t clear where she got it or whose it is, but Steve insists that he can drive just fine.

Yevgeny doesn’t feel the need to point out that _he_  can drive, because it’s obvious to him that the Asset is going to have to sit in the back seat to minimize attention, and he has every intention of sitting back there.

Natasha’s brought changes of clothes for a week and reassurances that she’ll get more if needed, and then comes the awkward question of if _she’s_  staying.

In the end, it’s decided that no, she isn’t. She’ll go back to the tower, do her work, and keep an eye on Tony. She insists that he’s ‘doing better’, but is quick to add that he’s ‘still angry’.

Yevgeny prefers to avoid the situation entirely. He’s happy to stay away.

Natasha insists on teaching Yevgeny--not Steve, and certainly not Bucky--how to disarm and rearm the various security systems that keep the safe house safe. He takes to them like a duck to water, earning himself several compliments from Natasha in the process.

He neglects to tell her that he’s dealt with nearly identical systems before.

Before she leaves, she tucks a phone into his hand. She doesn’t say what it’s for, but Yevgeny has a solid idea, and is quick to tuck it away before Steve spots it. He’s not entirely clear if Steve is _supposed_  to not know about it, but he decides it’s going to be his secret either way. 

“We can leave in the morning,” Steve says. “Traffic shouldn’t be bad by the time we get there. There’s always tourists, but no one’s going to be looking for him unless we attract attention.”

Yevgeny shrugs. He’s confident in _his_ ability to vanish, even if he’s likely to end up looking at pictures of what is effectively himself.

Himself from eighty-odd years earlier.

They eat Chinese food that Natasha left behind, huddled around the table. It’s not a new experience for Yevgeny, but Bucky seems interested in it. He struggles with the chopsticks until Steve reaches over to help him, demonstrating himself.

The darker it gets outside, the more Yevgeny wonders just what’s going to happen then. There’s only one bed, one couch, and the floor. Even if there are sheets in the closet, he can already tell that the sleeping arrangements are going to be trouble.

“We should head to bed,” Steve says as he starts clearing away the dishes. Yevgeny lets him, but he heads to the closet to dig out the linens instead.

Bucky simply watches, looking unfocused.

Very quickly, the dishes are done, the bathroom visits over, and the three of them are left standing in the living room. There’s a bed on the floor, a bed on the couch, and an _actual_  bed in the bedroom.

“You should take the bed, you’re the youngest,” Steve says, and Yevgeny’s shaking his head before he’s had time to actually process it. The thought of him sleeping alone in a room while his original and the Asset sleep beside each other isn’t one that appeals to him at all.

 _You’re the oldest_ , he mouths, and Steve’s face scrunches up in concentration, obviously doing his best to follow.

“But you’ve got the bad back. I know, I lived through it,” Steve insists.

Bucky glances between them, trying to follow.

 _I have the serum, I’m fine,_ Yevgeny insists, feeling a twisted sort of joy in watching Steve struggle to keep up with what he’s saying.

“Why are we arguing?” Bucky suddenly asks.

“We aren’t arguing,” Steve insists. “We’re just deciding where to sleep.”

 _I’ll sleep on the floor,_ Yevgeny mouths, gesturing to the ground beside the couch for emphasis. _I’m used to it._

It isn’t even a lie. He’s spent most of his life without a bed, and he’d do just fine if he never had one again.

“All the more reason for you to have the bed-” Steve starts, only to be interrupted by the sound of Bucky sitting down right there on the floor, taking up the very bed both Yevgeny and Steve were arguing for.

There’s a hasty scramble for sheets, and by the end of it all three of them are on the floor, with Bucky sitting in the middle.

Bucky looks confused, but it’s less the blank eyed confusion of the Asset and more the genuine confusion of a person faced with an absurd situation.

“We should be in the bed,” he finally says. “It’s big.”

The solution is equal parts obvious and irritating to Yevgeny, but when Bucky pushes himself up, he quickly follows behind, grabbing the blankets and the pillow he’s claimed as his own.

The bed is indeed big enough for the three of them, even with room to spare.

“Are we really going to just all share a bed?” Steve asks, sounding doubtful of the whole idea.

Bucky looks at him, confused. It’s the Assets confusion though, the slightly blank look he gets so often.

“Didn’t we before?” He mumbles, obviously doubting himself.

 _On missions_ , Yevgeny mouths.

The Asset only looks more confused.

“I don’t remember sleeping, really,” he mumbles. “Unless you were there.”

Steve lets out a tiny little noise that Yevgeny can’t quite place. It might be anger, or it might be confusion. All he can do is glance at the other man, trying and failing to read him.

“Alright,” Steve finally says, and Bucky turns to look at him properly, still looking confused.

“Didn’t we?”

“Let’s sleep, alright Buck? We’ve got a lot of driving tomorrow.”

It takes a bit of prompting--because the Asset still seems confused--but eventually he lies down, curling up in the bed. Yevgeny takes the side farthest from the door, curling up against the Asset’s metal arm.

There’s plenty of room, but he doesn’t take it.


	52. Chapter 52

Yevgeny wakes to warmth.

The Asset has rolled over in the night, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him to his chest. It’s disorienting, and it takes Yevgeny a moment to place himself, to get his head around the mission.

Not a mission. They’re in a bed, not a hole in the ground, and the Asset isn’t even the Asset anymore--not really.

He’s something else entirely, a stranger that Yevgeny can only pretend to know.

Bucky’s still asleep, his breathing deep and even, and Yevgeny lifts his neck to check on Steve. The man’s not there, but Yevgeny isn’t terribly surprised, and the bed seems to have been neatly made despite the fact that there were still two people in it.

Awake, then, and leaving them alone.

Yevgeny sags back into the mattress, letting out a tiny sigh of his own.

Familiar. The whole thing was familiar, and yet so different.

Eventually, Yevgeny pushes himself out of bed, sliding himself free of the Asset’s metal arm. The sleeping man didn’t stir, which he decides is a good thing--he deserved the sleep.

He isn’t even slightly surprised to find Steve in the living room, cradling a cup of coffee and looking even more tired than the night before.

“Sleep well?” He asks when Yevgeny emerges from the room.

Yevgeny nods, heading to the kitchen to get some water.

Steve is obviously dwelling on something when he returns, his face set and focused. There’s a question on the tip of his tongue, or perhaps even an accusation.

He doesn’t say it.

For lack of anything better to do, Yevgeny finds himself doing pushups once again.

He beats his record by ten, but he has no one to brag to.

They take showers, and then they wait.

Bucky finally emerges from the room close to eleven, still looking half asleep.

“Were you already up...?” He mumbles, and Yevgeny squints at him in confusion, unsure of what he’s asking.

“Don’t worry about it Buck. You should take a shower,” Steve says, and Bucky goes to do just that.

They slide into the car close to noon, and Yevgeny’s pleased when he ends up in the back seat with the Asset. It isn’t terribly interesting though--the Asset sleeps for the majority of the ride, dozing as he leans against the door. 

Steve seems to spend the majority of the ride watching him in the mirror, sparing Yevgeny only the occasional glance. Yevgeny spends most of the ride trying not to itch _too_  noticeably, flaking off chunks of old scar tissue and leaving a ring of pink new skin around all his scars.

They stop at a rest stop for food, and Steve ducks inside to get lunch. They eat in the car before starting off again, and then Bucky’s back to dozing.

Yevgeny wonders how it is that a man so troubled during the day can sleep so easily.

After an hour of watching him, he decides that _exhaustion_  is the answer he’s looking for.

They only make it to DC at four, and Steve lets out a little sigh.

“Alright, decision time. Do we want to stay here for the night? The exhibit should only take us an hour, but I think Nat would kill me if we skipped over the chance to show you the rest. We’re here anyway, we don’t have anything else to do, and it might help patch some holes. It was helpful for _me,_ anyway.”

Yevgeny has never been in a museum, so he simply shrugs.

Bucky seems more unclear, leaning forward slightly in his seat.

“Didn’t... I go before? Not to this one. When I was younger.”

“You’re thinking of the Museum of Natural History. We went with school. This one’s different. It covers history--American history.”

Yevgeny is having a hard time imagining something that might be more boring, but Bucky nods just the same.

“Alright, let's get a hotel, then. One by the museum. Then we can go there tonight and see the exhibit, and do the rest in the morning before we go.”

Yevgeny waves to draw Steve’s attention.

 _Do you have the money?_  He mouths, earning himself a confused look from the other man.

He doesn’t bother getting Bucky to interpret. Instead he simply rubs his hands together in the nearly universal sign for _cash_.

“I have cash, Yevgeny. We’re also in DC, and I’m pretty sure every hotel in the city would happily hand us the suite if I so much as showed my face.”

Yevgeny isn’t quite sure _why_ , but he feels stupid for not knowing and doesn’t bother to ask. Steve obviously _assumes_  he knows why, and he’s in no hurry to correct him.

“I was here before,” Bucky says abruptly, staring out the window.

Steve glances back to him briefly before turning back to the road.

“Yeah, you were.”

“When I was a kid...?”

Even though he can’t see Steve’s face, Yevgeny can see the way his shoulders tense.

“No, not that I know of, Buck. I think you were just here when HYDRA was still controlling you. When you broke away from them. Do you remember pulling me out of the river?”

Bucky shakes his head, his gaze fixed firmly out the window.

“You were on a bridge,” he mutters under his breath. “And I remembered you.”

“Yeah, you did. You were confused, but you broke away from HYDRA. And now you’re out of there.”

Bucky doesn’t respond.


	53. Chapter 53

Steve finds a hotel with almost frightening ease, leaving Yevgeny in the car with Bucky as he ducks inside. Yevgeny watches him go before turning back to the still-quiet man in the seat beside him.

It’s not the same sort of quietness he’s used to, and he finds himself feeling abruptly uncomfortable, unsure if he should interrupt. The entire trip seems like someone else’s joyride that he’s been accidentally brought along for, and he has no context for the Asset’s confusion.

Something happened in the city, obviously, but he doesn’t know the details.

 “Yev?” Comes the Asset’s voice, and he jumps, suddenly aware that _he’s_  the one who’s been lost in thought.

He glances to the Asset, surprised to find the man staring at him, his forehead creased with concern.

“You okay?” He says, and Yevgeny nods quickly. He’s fine. There’s nothing to be concerned about.

Bucky settles back in his seat, looking unconvinced.

There’s a knock on the roof of the car and Yevgeny spins to find Steve standing outside, obviously waiting.

“I tried to get a room, but they upgraded me. Natural advantage, I guess,” he says with a shrug.

Yevgeny is starting to get the vague idea that whoever Steve is, he’s important to more than just Bucky.

They unload the car and pile into the hotel. The room turns out to be at least three times the size of the apartment they’d left, complete with three beds. It looks less like what Yevgeny thinks of as a hotel and more what he thinks of as a _large apartment._

Steve is _definitely_  important.

They have next to nothing in the way of things to unpack, which makes for a quick trip.

Steve seems to be increasingly awkward the longer they take, and finally he says what’s on his mind outright.

“Buck, could I... actually get a second with Yevgeny?” He asks, to the obvious surprise of both Bucky and Yevgeny himself.

He’s having a hard time imagining what Steve Rogers could possibly want with him, but Bucky doesn’t protest, excusing himself to take another too-hot shower.

Yevgeny squirms nervously before taking a seat on the overly-soft couch, practically sinking into it as Steve grabs a chair across from him.

Steve looks just as nervous as he does, which helps his nerves a bit. It seems to take him _forever_  to say anything, to the point where Yevgeny starts to worry that the Asset will be finished his shower before he is.

“I know that no matter what I say now, you aren’t going to like me. I know that,” Steve starts, which doesn’t bode well for the conversation in the slightest. “But I know I’ve been keeping things from you, and I’m sure you’ve been keeping things from me. We’ve both been defensive, and we’ve both been protective, and we should be honest with each other. We both have the same goal. We both want--or I want to hope we both want--for Bucky to get better.”

Yevgeny keeps his silence, watching Steve talk. When it becomes obvious that Yevgeny isn’t going to reply, Steve simply forges on.

“I know you feel like Bucky’s the only thing you have left. Everyone else is gone, and even before they were, he was important to you. I know that because I feel the same way. I spent sixty years frozen in ice, and when I woke up the world was different. I thought that everyone I knew--every single person I’d grown up with--was gone. I tried to look people up, but the people that I found weren’t the same people I’d left behind. People change a lot in that period of time, so much so that they felt like different people entirely. So when Buck showed up...” Steve trails off for a moment before shaking his head, continuing.

“So what I’m trying to say is that I know what you’re feeling. I know how it feels to be isolated like that, and I don’t blame you for trying to stay close to him.”

Yevgeny knows there’s going to be a _but_. The entire conversation is leading up to a _but_.

“So that’s why I’m having this conversation. Because I know you care about him, and you’re not going to just give up on him and leave. You want what’s best for him. But in the end that’s what this is all about. Because I’m worried that having you there--especially here, where he broke away from HYDRA--is hindering him. And I know I’m being a hypocrite--Nat’s pointed that out plenty--but that doesn’t change that the worry is still there. Bucky’s having a hard time separating his memories from when he was with HYDRA and the memories he has from before HYDRA, and we’re going to be looking at a whole bunch of information from _before_ , and I’m hoping it’s going to help him out.”

The _but_  is staring him in the face.

“So I’m hoping that you’ll be willing to give him a bit of space when we’re at the exhibit tonight. To give him time to process things, without everything mixing in. I’m not asking you to leave, but just... give us some space.”

It’s not a _but_ , but it feels like one.

The worst part about the entire thing--about Steve’s entire, painful speech--is that he’s wrong. Yevgeny can’t quite tell himself that what he’s doing _is_  in Bucky’s self interests. It’s a selfish, desperate desire not to be left behind, and with Steve staring at him with his desperate pleading look, all Yevgeny can think about the _what if_.

What if Bucky _does_  remember?

What if Bucky remembers everything, and decides that everything that happened in those long, cold, painful years is better left in the past?

It’s the obvious, inevitable answer.

Yevgeny nods, and Steve smiles at him with a smile that should be on the cover of a magazine.

“Thanks. It means a lot, honestly. I’m just hoping the trip will help,” Steve says, and then he’s up and on his feet, heading over to knock on the bathroom door and let Bucky know to wrap it up.

Yevgeny feels like puking.


	54. Chapter 54

Yevgeny tries not to think about the conversation. He tries not to think about things at all, really. He lets the small things distract him, focusing on them and nothing else.

There are, in truth, a lot of small things to be distracted by. Like the occasional double takes that their party--mostly Steve--seem to get. There’s the fact that Steve insists not just on Bucky wearing gloves and keeping his arm out of sight, but also that they dress in a variety of suspicious outfits. Yevgeny doesn’t bother to point out that three men walking into a museum in sunglasses and baseball caps is going to draw attention, and simply pulls his off the moment Steve looks away. He leaves Bucky with his hoodie, and himself with nothing at all.

No one is going to recognize him, and even if they do it’ll just be a funny coincidence.

The list of _small_  things that distract him is very quickly shoved to the side when he gets to the exhibit, stopping dead and staring up at it.

Steve’s face--blown up to several times it’s actual size--stares back at him.

Yevgeny pauses for a moment before sparing a glance back at where Steve and Bucky stand--talking quietly not far from the exit--and then steps inside.

He honestly can’t figure out what he expected the museum to be about, and after some thought he decided it’s less that he couldn’t figure it out, and more that he didn’t think about it at all. His focus had always remained firmly on the Asset, and the identity of his original had remained a distant, unimportant second.

He had known, of course, that his original was an enemy of HYDRA. He’d known that he was important in some way to the Asset. He’d even known, eventually, that his name was Steve Rogers.

He has a hard time coming wrapping his head around the words _Captain America_  painted three feet tall over a picture of his original saluting the American flag.

He’d always just assumed that when someone called him _Captain America_ , they were making fun of him.

He hadn’t realized that they meant it _literally_.

The exhibit is absolutely packed with memorabilia, and the walls are littered with information. It’s obvious that the exhibit assumes that anyone coming in will be familiar with the story, but Yevgeny manages to piece most of the story together from what he already knows and what’s on the walls.

Even if the majority of the exhibit is an absolutely _choking_ amount of flag-saluting patriotism, Yevgeny still finds it useful.

There’s an entire section dedicated to _James Buchanan Barnes_ , and when Yevgeny stops in front of it he finds himself looking at the Asset’s face. Ten years younger and far less haunted, but undeniably the same man.

He makes himself memorize every word before he lets himself move on. Even if most of it won’t ever matter--he’s sure the Asset’s family are long dead, and his school record won’t ever matter--he wants to know it anyway.

He’s careful--incredibly so--to give Steve and Bucky their space. It’s what Steve wants, and he can’t even deny that what he said is probably true. Bucky probably _would_  have an easier time if he wasn’t there.

It hurts, but that doesn’t change how true it is or isn’t.

He finds a wall with a life size pre-serum photo of his original, and considers lining up against it. Then he decides it doesn’t matter--someone’s liable to spot him if he does, and the similarities are too obvious. The only difference between him and the man on the walls it that he looks perpetually angry.

He supposes that he _is_  perpetually angry.

It’s hard not to be.

He finishes the exhibit long before the others do, and goes to sit outside. No one bothers him--he’s fairly good at being inconspicuous--but he forces himself to turn away.

He doesn’t want to watch.


	55. Chapter 55

It’s a relief when Yevgeny excuses himself to explore the exhibit on his own. It’s one less thing to worry about, and if there’s one thing Steve’s confident in, it’s Yevgeny’s ability to handle himself alone.

He’s far less certain about himself, let alone Bucky.

“If you need to sit down, or to leave, or _anything_ , you just need to say the word, alright?” Steve insists, watching Bucky carefully. The other man doesn’t seem nervous, but he doesn’t seem all there either--a bit more spaced out than he was the day before, although it seems to come and go.

“I’m fine,” Bucky insists. “This isn’t the same place, though...” He says, trailing off and glancing around.

It takes Steve a moment to realize what he means.

“Oh! You mean the museum. They moved it--if you visited last year, it was over in the Air and Space museum, with all the planes.”

Bucky looks momentarily confused, then nods, the issue resolved.

Steve carefully touches Bucky’s arm, guiding him into the exhibit. He doesn’t really care about the stuff about himself--he doubts Bucky does either--but there’s an entire section all about their childhood, and he hopes it’ll help. As odd as it is to look at a tiny model of his old apartment under glass, he hopes that it’ll be familiar enough to spark something.

Bucky pauses in the middle of the exhibit, glancing around.

“Wasn’t... Wasn’t Yev here?” He asks, seeming mystified by the absence. “Did we leave him in the city...?”

Steve feels a pang of guilt that he does his best to push away. Bucky’s confused, but it’s for the best.

“He’s here. He’s just elsewhere in the museum, so he’ll be back soon, alright?” Steve says, trying to sound reassuring.

Bucky is always, _always_  accepting, which somehow only makes things worse. He feels like he could tell Bucky anything and he’d still believe him, like every word he says is the truth itself.

He hates it. Bucky shouldn’t trust him nearly as much as he does, not after all the mistakes he’s made.

“Come on,” he insists, scooting Bucky towards his own little section.

The wall is only a small portion, but Steve’s thankful for the space. There’s no one there, and Bucky’s able to stand just a foot away, staring up at his own face.

“It’s me,” he mutters under his breath, but Steve can’t tell if he’s talking to himself or not.

“Yeah, that’s you,” Steve says gently. “When you were younger.”

Bucky goes silent, and Steve can only hope that he’s taking it in. He doesn’t want to interrupt him, so he simply stands there, trying not to watch Bucky _too_  obviously.

It seems to take _hours_  for Bucky to say anything, but Steve knows it can’t have been more than ten minutes.

“It’s all true, right?” Bucky finally says quietly. Steve makes a point of quickly skimming the words before replying.

“Yeah. If we’re being honest, they were a bit _charitable_  when they said you were an overachiever in the classroom. I mean, you did well, but-”

“Didn’t I get a D in math, once?” Bucky asks, his brows furrowed together.

Steve lets out a little laugh.

“Yes, and you raised holy hell over it. You were smart, but you always had better things to do with your time than sit down and study. You wanted to be _doing_  things.”

“Women,” Bucky says, letting out an uncertain little laugh under his breath.

“When you could get them. I think you dated half of New York before you shipped out.”

“Was I ever serious?” The look of confusion’s back on his face, and Steve has to admit that he doesn’t really know.

“I don’t think so. You never mentioned anyone.”

There’s another long silence as Bucky stares up at the picture of himself. He doesn’t _seem_  any better--there’s no sudden epiphany or anything--but there’s no telling how much it is or isn’t helping.

“I remembered you,” Bucky says so suddenly that Steve jumps slightly. “When I saw you on the bridge. But even then... I think I got you confused. They’d wiped me, and they kept wiping me, because I remembered...”

It hurts to hear him talk about it, to hear him talk about being _wiped_  like he’s a chalkboard and not a person.

“They shouldn’t have done that, Buck. It wasn’t right. No one should be wiped like that.”

“They had to. Because I wouldn’t... I wouldn’t do what they wanted, if they didn’t. Because I’d remember that I shouldn’t be doing things. So they’d wipe until I would, no matter how many times it took.”

Steve reaches out, resting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, but too late he realizes that he’s on the wrong side--Bucky probably can’t even feel it through the metal.

“But I still remember,” he muttered quietly. “The stuff that happened between the wipes. It’s all there, it’s just... muddled.”

 _Remembering_  is both what Steve wants him to do, and what he fears that he will. He wants Bucky to remember, but only selectively. He wants him to remember all those happy childhood memories, but none of the stuff in between.

The less he remembers of that, the better.

“You don’t have to,” Steve says quietly. “You can leave it muddled. No one’s going to blame you.”

Bucky turns, and for a moment Steve can’t quite place the emotion on his face. It’s too unfamiliar, too different from the tired, confused look that’s been on his face since the day on the bridge.

Its annoyance, he suddenly realizes. 

“I _do_  need to remember,” Bucky says, his tone insistent. “I can’t - I can’t make it not happening by just forgetting it.”

Steve’s never disagreed with anything more in his life.

“It’s not about making it not happen. It’s about your own health. Remembering isn’t going to change the past, there’s no reason to force yourself to remember. None of that was you.”

“It was me, Steve,” Bucky says insistently his voice rising temporarily before he brings it back down. “It was me. Even if it was someone else controlling me, it was still me. I’m the one who pulled the trigger, I’m the one who killed all those people.”

Steve feels like a knife’s been stuck in his chest, and every single word Bucky says is twisting it.

“It wasn’t you,” he insists desperately. “You wouldn’t have done that. You were a good, honest man--you would never have hurt anyone without a damned good reason-”

“But I did,” Bucky says, cutting him off. “I did. I hurt a lot of people. I killed a lot of people. And not remembering isn’t going to make that not true.”

The silence is long and heavy, and Steve wonders if anyone’s looking at them. He can’t bring himself to look, can’t bring himself to tear his eyes away from the hurt look on Bucky’s face.

“You can’t protect me from myself, Steve,” Bucky says finally, turning away and starting to leave.

Steve simply stands there, watching him go.


	56. Chapter 56

Yevgeny’s only half watching at best. He doesn’t want to see a happy reunion where everyone reminisces about their childhood years. As much as he wants Bucky to be happy--and he keeps telling himself that, convinced it’ll be true if he does--the idea of it is repulsive to him.

He doesn’t want to hear about all the happy childhood stories he never got a chance at.

He’s so intent on _not_  looking that he almost misses Bucky on his way out, his hands in his pockets and his head ducked. If he hadn’t spent almost a year making the exact same posture himself--hadn’t learned to look for it--he might have missed it.

He doesn’t look for Steve, simply jumps to his feet and goes after him.

Bucky’s reached the sidewalk before he catches up to him, falling in step almost immediately. Bucky gives him only a quick glance--probably to check who he is--and then goes back to staring at the ground.

He _wants_  to ask if he’s okay, but there’s no way to do so. Not without a voice, and not without simply shoving his hands in his face.

They’re in public, so he simply keeps pace and follows.

They don’t go back to the hotel. Yevgeny isn’t familiar with the city, but he has enough of a sense of direction to know that they’re going in exactly the wrong way. 

Bucky seems to know where he’s going though, so he simply follows closely, letting him go to wherever he’s headed.

He spares a quick glance behind him, but there’s no sign of Steve.

Bucky winds through the city with a practiced ease, obviously familiar. He ducks down an alley and Yevgeny’s quick to follow, shoving his hands into his pockets as he does so.

He still has his phone, at least. His phone and his notebook, even though he’s only ever used his notebook one single time.

What he doesn’t have is money, or anything else in the way of supplies. They’re both ill prepared, and Yevgeny’s forced to wonder just what, exactly, he’s doing. Running away? Vanishing back into the streets and leaving Steve behind? As many issues as he has with Steve, the thought of not seeing anyone else again--especially Natasha and Clint--isn’t a happy one.

Running away doesn’t seem plausible either way.

Yevgeny stiffens slightly when Bucky leads them into a rather busy homeless camp. He spent a lot of time on the streets himself, but for the most part he’d stayed away from the local community. Too many eyes. Too many people noticing someone who was _too young_  to be on the streets.

Bucky blends right in. No one gives a shabby looking man with two days worth of scruff a first glance, let alone a second. Yevgeny himself draws a few glances, but everyone simply turns away once they establish that he’s only there with Bucky.

Bucky winds his way through the camp until he finds the place that Bucky was no doubt looking for--a clearly abandoned building that looks absolutely gutted. There’s no question that people have been living in it, and there’s also no question in Yevgeny’s mind that Bucky’s familiar with the building. He seems to know exactly where to go, heading up the half broken stairs.

More than anything, Yevgeny’s wondering why, of all places, Bucky’s come there. There isn’t anything special about the building, and if privacy is what Bucky wants, he’s unlikely to find it there.

He’s still wondering when Bucky abruptly stops in front of a rusty metal bookshelf, dinged to hell and completely empty.

“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, pulling his metal arm out of his pocket to stare at his gloved hand.

It occurs to Yevgeny that he intended to move the bookshelf--that he probably did plenty of times before--but the sudden loss of extra strength will no doubt make things difficult.

He taps Bucky on the shoulder and the other man turns, staring at him for a second.

 _We can both do it,_ Yevgeny says. _I’m stronger than I was._

Bucky stares for a moment longer before nodding, moving over to brace his flesh and blood shoulder against the side of the bookshelf. Yevgeny moves to join him, and immediately realizes how whatever is behind it stayed hidden.

The bookshelf has to be at _least_  four hundred pounds.

It takes the two of them shoving hard to dislodge it, sliding it out of place to reveal a doorway. The door looks like it’s liable to fall apart at any moment, but the room behind it turns out to be almost miraculously intact compared to the rest of the building.

Probably sealed off since the building was abandoned, if Yevgeny had to guess.

The room is thick with dust, and Yevgeny turns to watch as Bucky shoves his back against a cabinet--far smaller and easier to move--sliding it over the door to keep it closed.

His base, he realizes. The place he hid, at least for a while. A place where no one would find him.

There’s signs of inhabitation--a stack of unopened cans in the corner, a pile of newspapers against the wall--and a sleeping bag wrapped up against the wall. Bucky doesn’t bother to open it though, simply presses his back against the wall and slides down until he’s sitting, wrapping his arms around his legs and burying his face in his knees.

Yevgeny simply stands there, unsure of what to do. He doesn’t know what happened--if they fought or not--and can only guess at what would be best to do.

In the end he simply sits down beside Bucky, watching him carefully for some kind of sign.

He doesn’t get a sign. He gets Bucky’s arm reaching out, wrapping around him and pulling him in close. Yevgeny goes stiff, more instinct than anything else, and Bucky flinches in response, immediately releasing him, a pained look on his face as he glances over.

“I wouldn’t -” He blurts out, and Yevgeny immediately moves over, pressing against his side.

Bucky takes a moment to relax, and then slowly wraps his arm around Yevgeny’s shoulder, leaning into him.

Yevgeny’s content to stay like that for a long, long while.

Eventually, though, he needs to know, and he nudges Bucky once before signing _explain_  and _what_  in quick succession.

Bucky doesn’t respond right away, letting out a sigh and pulling Yevgeny in a little bit tighter.

“We fought,” he finally says. “A little bit. He doesn’t... He doesn’t want me to remember everything. He thinks I should just leave the past in the past.”

Yevgeny can take a guess at _what_  past it is that Steve would prefer Bucky leave behind.

“I can’t do that though. I can’t pretend like it didn’t happen.”

There’s a too-loud beep that makes them both jump, and Yevgeny glances down at his pocket, embarrassed by the intrusion.

“You should get it,” Bucky mumbles quietly, and Yevgeny pulls back enough to dig the phone out.

A text is waiting for Natasha, blissfully brief.

_Where are you? - N_

Yevgeny glances up at Bucky briefly before looking down at the phone. There’s no need to ask for permission, and the idea of letting Natasha worry isn’t one he’s willing to entertain.

 _safe will come back soon,_  he texts quickly, receiving only a quick ‘ok’ in response.

He stares at the phone a moment longer before tucking it away.

“You should go back. Steve will be worried,” Bucky says quickly, and Yevgeny fixes him with a firm, irritated glare. The idea that Steve would be worried for _him_  and not for Bucky is absurd.

“You should still go back,” Bucky insists, obviously aware that Yevgeny isn’t buying it.

 _I’m not going back_ , he mouths. _Unless you’re coming with me._

Bucky frowns at him, but he doesn’t protest further.

“I don’t understand...” Bucky starts, his voice cracking. “I don’t understand how you can even stand to be around me.”

Yevgeny goes still at his side.

He knows, of course, what Bucky’s talking about. At the very least he can take a guess. There are a lot of reason that he might have had, but inevitably all of them don’t matter quite as much as they probably should.

The Asset was all that he had for a long, long time.

Bucky can understand him in a way that most people won’t ever be able to.

Perhaps most of all, Bucky doesn’t blame _him_ , and it seems impossibly cruel to blame him in turn.

It seems so, so hard to figure out how to say it, how to wrap it all up in a way that Bucky will accept. He feels like no matter what he says, Bucky won’t, that the other man is so wrapped up in guilt that he’ll simply take anything that Yevgeny says as a lie.

Finally he settles on the simplest, most basic thing he can say. The truth--a simple, sad little truth.

 _The only time I can ever remember anyone showing me any kindness, it was you,_ he mouths.

The fact that the Asset--under orders--did cruel things matters so much less than that.


	57. Chapter 57

Steve stares up at the too-large image of James Buchanan Barnes and wonders exactly where he went wrong. He’s aware, of course, that he _did_  do something wrong--but exactly what is lost to him.

He feels sick.

He stares a moment too long up at the wall before turning, shoving the ticket stubs into his pocket as he heads out the door. He doubts they’ll be back under any circumstances.

He isn’t surprised when he finds Yevgeny missing, and he’s even less surprised when he finds that Bucky’s long, long gone. He isn’t lingering by the doorway, and as he stands out in front of the museum he realizes that he hasn’t the faintest idea of where they might have gone.

He starts back towards the hotel, digging out his phone and staring it. He can’t imagine--not with Natasha involved, ever prepared--that Yevgeny is uncontactable. It’s obvious enough to him that the two are together, which means he just needs to get ahold of Nat to make sure that they’re okay.

But he knows that calling Nat is going to be _trouble_. No matter what happens--even if they’re completely safe--calling Nat is opening a box of worms.

He shoves the phone back in his pocket and carries on towards the hotel.

The room is, of course, empty. He didn’t really think that Bucky was going to go right back there, even if he doesn’t have a clue where he he _would_  go.

He’ll give them five minutes, he tells himself, and then immediately changes his mind. All he can remember is Nat’s angry comment that Yevgeny would _absolutely_  kill someone without a second thought, and it’s enough to make him pick up the phone and make the call rather than putting it off to avoid his own embarrassment.

“Natasha,” she answers, despite the fact that it’s her personal phone and Steve doesn’t think that _anyone_  would ever answer it but her.

“It’s Steve,” he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed and clearing his throat.

“What happened?”

Steve winces instinctively, dragging his fingers through his hair.

“I didn’t even say anything yet.”

“Steve, you’re currently on a day trip with Barnes. You wouldn’t call me for anything less than an emergency.”

She’s so accurate that Steve can’t help but wince.

“We split up. I just wanted to know if you’d heard, or if you could get ahold of them to make sure they’re okay.”

Natasha makes the smallest, most frustrated little noise that Steve’s ever heard, and then in an instant she’s right back to business professional, as if she’d never made it at all.

“Well, first you’re going to tell me exactly what happened.”

“Can you just check on them first, and _then_  interrogate me about it...?” He says, only for Natasha to cluck her tongue in response.

“I want to hear what you did, first, because Yevgeny isn’t going to go running off unless _you_  did something. And depending on what you did, I might have to borrow a car from Stark and drive down to pick them up, and you can drive home alone.”

Steve wonders if she’s enjoying torturing him, and decides that she probably is.

He’s wrong, but he doesn’t realize it.

“It wasn’t him, for the record. Me and Bucky just... disagreed. It wasn’t even an argument or a fight. We just disagreed.”

“Steve, please don’t waste my time. People don’t ditch each other in strange cities over _disagreements_.”

“Well, he did,” Steve mutters under his breath.

“Then tell me what you _disagreed_  about, since you’re beating so well around the bush.”

Steve doesn’t want to tell her. He already knows that, no matter what the issue is, she’s probably going to end up agreeing with Bucky. He doesn’t even think she _likes_  Bucky all that much, but they seem to have enough in common that they agree on a lot of things.

“I told him that no one would blame him if he let himself forget what happened. No one would blame him if he just... left it in the past.”

It’s as simple as his argument can get, and he really isn’t expecting the exasperated sigh from the other side of the phone.

He wonders if Natasha’s _already_ contacting Yevgeny. He can’t imagine that she only has access to one phone.

“Steve, please. _Please_  tell me that you didn’t _actually_  use the words ‘leave it in the past’. _Especially_  tell me you didn’t say that in front of Yevgeny.”

Steve has to take a moment to think back, fairly certain that he didn’t, at the very least, use those words.

“No,” he finally says. “Just... the gist of it. He doesn’t need to force himself to remember.”

“In front of Yevgeny?”

“No.”

Natasha goes abruptly silent for several long moments, to the point where Steve’s forced to wonder if the call disconnected.

“ _Why_ wasn’t it in front of Yevgeny?” Natasha says suddenly.

Steve becomes immediately aware that no matter what he says, he’s in trouble. There’s no right answer. In the end, though, it isn’t in his nature to lie, so he simply says the truth.

“I asked him to gave us some space while we were in the exhibit.”

The silence simply keeps going, on and on, and Steve feels a bead of sweat drip down his back. He wonders if she’s getting in the car.

His brain tells him that he’s being silly, that she wouldn’t _really_  be getting in the car to drive all the way to DC to murder him, but Steve’s well aware of how dangerous Natasha can be, and just how protective she obviously is of Yevgeny.

“Steve, are you even _slightly_  aware of how stupid you are?”

It’s hard not to get defensive, hard not to snap back, and he opens his mouth to respond only to have Natasha very quickly talk over him.

“Shut up, Steve. Sit down, wherever you are, and just listen for one minute,” Natasha says, her voice like steel.

Steve shuts up.

“I want you to stop--just for one second--and think about Yevgeny. Don’t think of Bucky. I want you to think about Yevgeny, and about what he’s been through, and about what life must have been like for him. I don’t talk much about _my_  past, but you’ve heard enough to get an idea, and the Red Room only got me when I was _young_ , not when I was _born_.”

Steve doesn’t think she’s said more than thirty words total about her life before she met Clint, but he has a pretty good idea about what it was like just from what _wasn’t_  said.

“I think the most ridiculous part of this entire thing--this whole insane situation--is that anyone in the whole world would just _assume_  that you’d sympathize with your clone. He’s you, Steve. He looks like you, he even acts like you at times, even if neither of you would ever admit it. He’s exactly what you would be if you’d grown up under HYDRA.”

Steve disagrees, but he doesn’t manage to get a whole word out before Natasha’s interrupted him.

“No, Steve. When I told you to be quiet and think about things, I meant it. Try. Try to picture how awful it must have been for him. Try to picture how he must be reacting to what you’re doing. And don’t tell me that you didn’t mean it that way, because I _know_  you didn’t mean it that way, but that’s what you’re doing. You’re pushing away someone who rather desperately needs your support.”

Natasha goes quiet, and Steve keeps his mouth shut, sure she’s going to start talking again. She doesn’t--she just lets him sit in silence, stewing over everything she’s said.

“I get it,” he says quietly. “I’m just - I’m just worried about Bucky. I know what it’s like to wake up and have no one, I know what the culture shock is like suddenly waking up sixty years in the future. I don’t know what it’s like to be... raised by HYDRA, or whatever. So it’s just... easier to sympathize with Bucky.”

There’s no frustrated sound from the other end of the phone, even though Steve expects there to be one.

“Then think of it this way,” Natasha finally says. “What do you think _Bucky_ thinks about Yevgeny?”

He hadn’t thought about it, not really. He hadn’t considered, and the question is enough to make him stop, his mouth hanging open in the answer he was _going_ to make.

It doesn’t take long to figure out. Even if Bucky’s changed--even if he’s older and more haggard and so much more tired than he ever was growing up--he’s still the same person.

“He feels guilty,” Steve says quietly. “And responsible. He knows enough to know why Yevgeny exists, even if no one ever explicitly told him, and Bucky’s the kind of person who’d feel responsible for that, even if no one else would ever blame him.”

He expects a snarky comment--maybe ‘so you can be taught’ or ‘did it take you this long?’--but he doesn’t get one.

“That’s right,” Natasha says, her voice even on the other side of the phone. “And the more you push Yevgeny away, the worse he’s going to get, because Yevgeny has very few people in his life, and cutting him off from one of them is only going to make things worse for him.”

Steve squirms where he sits.

“I guess I’m going to be needing to apologize again,” he finally says.

Natasha makes a noise that couldn’t more clearly be a ‘no shit’ if she’d actually said it out loud.

“They’ll be back later tonight, Steve. Try and think things through before they get back. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She doesn’t wait for him to say goodbye, simply hangs up and leaves him staring at the phone.


	58. Chapter 58

Yevgeny stays where he sits on the floor even as the sun starts to dip beside the horizon. He likes where he is, pressed up against Bucky’s side, and the other man makes no protest, his arm still wrapped loosely around Yevgeny’s shoulders.

It’s comfortable and quiet, and even if he’s sure that Bucky’s thinking about things--unpleasant things, most likely--he feels more at peace than he ever has. There’re no pressing concerns, nothing nagging for his attention.

“We should go back,” Bucky finally says, his voice quiet. He sounds even more tired than usual, and Yevgeny turns to look up at him, observing quietly.

Bucky gives him a quick glance and then an obviously forced smile.

“Steve’s probably worrying. I don’t want to give your friend with the red hair reason to come after me. Pretty sure she’d put a bullet in me if she thought I’d run off with you. Returning the favor and all.”

Yevgeny doesn’t quite know what favor she’s returning, but he shakes his head quickly.

 _Nat wouldn’t,_  he insists. _She knows you wouldn’t do that._

Bucky stares into space for a moment before pushing himself to his feet, and Yevgeny’s quick to follow suit, scrambling to his feet.

“Then she’s wrong,” Bucky says under his breath, and Yevgeny has to take a moment to figure out what he means, circling around in front of Bucky so that he can read his hands.

 _What?_ He signals.

Bucky lets out a sigh.

“I’m not going to pretend like I’m a better man than I am, Yev. When I first woke up... honestly, I considered just grabbing you and running off. Part of that was just worry that leaving you there would lead to trouble, but part of it was just that I wanted someone who I knew would have my back.”

A part of Yevgeny wants to glow with delight that the Asset--Bucky--thinks that he’d _have his back_. Another part of him is horrified at the _what might have been_ , the thought of a half-crazed Asset simply abducting him out from under Natasha and Clints noses.

It wouldn’t have ended well, he decides. Not for any of them.

“I’m not the good person you seem to think I am,” Bucky adds as he starts for the door, leaving the majority of the supplies in the room. Yevgeny follows, unsure if he’s going to seal the room again, but he makes no effort to, simply heading down the stairs in the fading light.

Yevgeny hates that he can’t just _talk_ , that he can’t just say what’s on his mind, and he hurries to keep up, darting in front of Bucky to let him mouth the words. There’s nothing he can do if Bucky turns away or refuses to look, but the other man doesn’t, patiently watching his mouth as if it’s second nature.

Yevgeny supposes that it _is_  second nature.

 _You were kind to me before_ , he mouths. _And you’re kind to me now._

“Giving you a one of a kind tour of the shitty part of DC isn’t kindness, Yev.”

 _You didn’t send me away. That is,_ Yevgeny insists.

“You have very low standards for what count as kindness, Yev,” Bucky says, but there’s the slightest hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

He sticks close to Bucky’s side for the rest of the walk home, winding through the streets. No one bothers them, and Yevgeny wonders what would happen if someone did.

That person would probably end up hurt very, _very_  badly he finally decides.

The hotel’s lit up by the time they get there, and Bucky hesitates near the edge.

It’s so dark that Yevgeny doubts the other man would even be able to read his lips, so he simply grabs Bucky’s wrist and toes him into the lobby, walking without concern towards the elevators as he digs his card key out of his pocket.

A few people do turn to look, no doubt confused by the odd combination, but no one stops them as he pulls Bucky into the elevator.

“I don’t belong here,” Bucky mutters under his breath, and Yevgeny scowls at him.

It only takes Yevgeny a moment with the cardkey to open the door, and in that brief moment he gets to watch Bucky run the emotional gamut. One moment he looks angry, the next annoyed. Then he looks self pitying, and by the time Yevgeny gets the door open, Bucky simply looks determined, although Yevgeny can’t hope to guess what he’s determined to _do_.

Kick Steve’s ass, if he’s lucky.

Steve’s on his way to the door when they step inside, but he doesn’t look angry the way Yevgeny expects. Instead he looks upset and more than a little bit embarrassed, stopping just short of them as Yevgeny shuts the door.

“I screwed up,” Steve says immediately, which isn’t what Yevgeny’s expecting at all. It’s obviously not what Bucky’s expecting either, because his brows furrow.

“I know I screwed up. I shouldn’t have-” Steve starts, before changing his mind. “I should have thought more about what was best for you, not just thinking about what was best for me. For both of you. When I realized you were gone, I knew I wasn’t going to find you unless you wanted to be found, so I called Nat, and she... well, she set me straight. And looking back I’m not proud of the things that I did, but I just want you to know that as awful as it was, I was doing it out of a place of worry, not... maliciousness, or anything.”

Yevgeny isn’t used to Steve looking at him so much, but he is, his attention split almost equally between him and Bucky.

Bucky shifts his weight a bit, obviously at a loss for words, but finally does manage to say _something_.

“I... I get that, Steve. I know you just want the best,” Bucky finally says. “You just... weren’t doing it right.”

“I know,” Steve says, looking slightly pained by the admission. “I haven’t been doing a lot right since we got you back. I’ve been... single minded,” he admits.

Yevgeny decides that _single minded_  is a pretty good way of putting it.

“So I’m going to do better,” Steve adds. “You can’t talk to me because of what HYDRA did to you, but I can’t understand you because I didn’t bother to put the effort in. So I’m going to--I’ll talk to Nat, see if she can’t point me to some resources, and I’ll try-”

Bucky clears his throat and Steve cuts himself off.

“He gets it, Steve,” Bucky says, and Yevgeny absolutely does, even if he doesn’t _quite_  believe it. It isn’t the first time Steve’s apologized to him, and even if he seems a bit more earnest this time around, he’ll believe it when he sees it.

Steve nods and backs off a bit, giving them space to come in. The apartment’s still a bit too _large_  for Yevgeny’s taste--too many windows that are noticeably _not_  bulletproof glass--but he keeps his complaints to himself.

“I was thinking the zoo,” Steve says, and both Yevgeny and Bucky turn almost as one to squint at him.

“The zoo?” Bucky says incredulously.

“I doubt Yevgeny’s ever seen one, and it might be nice. Relaxing, compared to... everything else.”

Yevgeny is only vaguely aware of what a zoo _is_ , so he simply looks to Bucky, who seems to at least know.

Bucky pauses to consider, then shrugs.

“I guess. Not sure how good the zoo here is, but it might be nice.”

He doesn’t seem terribly convinced, but he’s clearly not against it either.

“We should sleep for the night, though,” Steve adds almost offhandedly. “There’s a room for each of us.”

Yevgeny wonders if pointing it out isn’t a compromise over the squabbles of the previous night, but he nods just the same.

Steve hesitates, obviously uncomfortable, and then quickly adds to his previous offer.

“If you want to share a room, I’m not going to object.”

Yevgeny knows enough to know that _that_  is probably more effort than learning to read lips, and at the very least he appreciates the effort, even if he shakes his head. He’s fine with his own room, and he’s not going to take advantage of Steve’s kindness to rub it in his face.

“We should go to sleep,” Bucky says.

No one objects.


	59. Chapter 59

Yevgeny isn’t really prepared for the zoo. He’s not prepared for the animals, not prepared for the crowds of people, not prepared for the entire _experience_  of it.

It’s completely unlike anything he’s ever experienced before.

There’s no parallel, nothing he can compare it to. He’s never had any real _social activities_  before, so it’s a whole new (if somewhat confusing) experience. Steve tries his best to maintain a low profile, but even so he gets spotted once, requiring a quick retreat to the far side of the zoo.

No one’s looking for Yevgeny or Bucky, which makes the whole _staying undercover_  thing a thousand times easier.

Yevgeny decides that he likes the wolves, a fact that Steve seems to find hilarious.

They eat in the little restaurant on zoo property, and before long Steve declares that as much as Yevgeny would _love_  to stand around watching the animals all day, they’ve been through the zoo and need to be getting back.

Yevgeny saves his protests for later.

He naps almost the entire car ride back, woken only when they enter New York and Bucky decides to speak.

“Are we going back to the safehouse?”

“No,” Steve says. “Nat says we’re supposed to go back to the tower. We’ll just give Tony a wide berth, but she said we should go back there the moment we get back.”

Bucky shifts a bit beside him, and Yevgeny keeps his eyes shut, listening intently.

“Do you think something happened?” Bucky asks.

Yevgeny can’t _see_  Steve squirming, but he’s sure that the man is. Steve wears his heart on his sleeve no matter how good or bad he might feel.

“Probably. I doubt Tony’d let us in the building otherwise. But if it were something really important, Nat would have told us.”

Yevgeny feels a sudden spike of pain in his cheek and he jumps, sitting up only to realize that Bucky is staring at him with an amused little _smirk_.

 _You flicked me_ , he grumbles, well aware that his message is no doubt being lost in translation as he rubs at his still-stinging cheek.

Bucky seems to get at least the _idea_  of it.

“And you were pretending to be asleep,” he counters.

There’s no real way to argue the obvious truth, and Yevgeny leans back against the seat with a little sigh.

It’s impossible not to feel nervous with the impending _something happened_  hanging over his head, but Steve seems relax as they pull into the tower, parking in the garage and heading to the elevator.

“We’re going to find Nat first, because if we _don’t_ , she’s going to kill me,” Steve says, and Yevgeny wonders if he’s even _slightly_  joking.

Probably not, he decides.

They find Nat in the very first place they look, which Yevgeny is pretty sure isn’t a coincidence. Of all the places she could be, the fact that she’s simply hanging out in the common area is a bit _too_  obvious.

She raises an eyebrow when she spots them, pushing herself up from the seat and folding her arms over her chest.

“Everyone intact?” She asks, with a very pointed look at Yevgeny. Considering who texted him the day before, there’s really no doubt in his mind that she has a good idea of what happened.

He nods, and Bucky does as well.

“Everyone’s intact,” Steve says. “We went to the zoo. First time for Yevgeny, and first time going to a zoo that isn’t completely _awful_  for Buck.”

“We went once, I think,” Bucky adds. “Things were a lot closer back then.”

“And a lot more unsafe. No one’s getting mauled in a modern day zoo,” Steve replies.

“Well, now that you’ve had your happy day out,” Natasha says, “It’s time to talk about what happened while you were gone.”

The three of them all seem to shift uncomfortably as one, a fact that might have been funny to Yevgeny if his stomach wasn’t currently trying to sink through the floor.

“You might as well just say it, because now we’re all expecting the worst,” Steve says, and Yevgeny’s suddenly trying to figure out what _the worst_  is.

HYDRA, he decides. HYDRA is the worst. Anything to do with them is on a fast track to the bottom of his lip. Them doing anything. Them finding out where Bucky is. There’s an endless supply of things that they _might_  have done, and he feels sick to his stomach thinking about it.

“Tony decided to blow off steam by organizing some raids on the targets that Yevgeny picked out when he first arrived. We’ve spent weeks digging into their personal lives, doing our best not to tip them off while establishing reasonable cause. Well, we got it on a few, raided three houses and ended up finding one new HYDRA base, still active despite the organizations near collapse,” Natasha explains, her voice even. “And we found files.”

Yevgeny likes the idea of Tony shooting his way through the houses of several HYDRA officials, but somehow he doubts things were half as bloody as he hopes.

“Files?” Steve says.

“Files on them,” Nat says, with a nod towards Yevgeny and Bucky.

Bucky goes stiff immediately, and Yevgeny turns to watch him. It’s obvious that whatever he thinks _files_  entail, it isn’t good.

“How much are we talking, in terms of data?” Steve asks, folding his arms over his chest.

“Everything.”

Yevgeny doesn't think it’s _everything_ \--mostly because everything would be far too much--but the fact that Natasha’s willing to _call_  it everything doesn’t bode well.

“Maybe I’m missing something here, but isn’t it a _good_  thing that we have everything? If we have everything, that’s evidence that’ll prove Bucky didn’t do any of that stuff of his own free will.”

Natasha makes a disapproving little noise, turning to face Steve more directly.

“Human’s don't work like that, Steve. The fact that Barnes didn’t choose to do those things matters a lot less than the fact that he _did_ , which means we need to make a decision on how we’re going to handle things. We haven’t handled the files over yet--we had discretion and Tony’s still going through them--but we need to decide if we’re going to at all.”


	60. Chapter 60

There isn’t a right answer, Yevgeny accepts easily. Every option has it’s own pitfalls, it’s own issues. Handing the files over puts them at the mercy of the government. It means more of a risk for Bucky, but Yevgeny’s well aware that _he’s_  at risk too. He was there, after all. More importantly, Bucky has a history. Bucky is a _person_  in the eyes of the government, a war hero with stories to tell.

Yevgeny is not. Yevgeny is barely a person. He has no records. He has no official existence. He didn’t go to school.

The only thing he’s done is murder a _lot_  of people, and even if he’s not completely familiar with the way the government works, he knows enough to know that the government isn’t going to like it.

But if they don’t hand it over--if they keep it to themselves--that’s a whole other problem. It means spending the rest of their lives in hiding. It means always having to worry that someone’s going to catch Bucky, or that someone will ask for ID.

There’s no easy answer.

Natasha insists on speaking to Bucky alone--ostensibly to assess how together he is--and Yevgeny takes the chance to head up to Tony’s lab, leaving Steve behind.

Even if there’s a _sort of truce_ , he obviously doesn’t think it’d be a good idea to put the two in a room together.

“Don’t touch anything, short stuff,” Tony calls when he opens the door, not even looking up. The lab is absolutely _packed_  with paper, endless stacks of it--both loose and in binders--on almost every flat surface. Bruce is there, looking ill, and he glances up, giving Yevgeny a brief smile before turning back to the paper in front of him.

“We called Clint back a bit early, for the record,” Tony calls, thumbing through the paper. “And now we’re doing what we can to sort through this mess and get an idea of what we’re looking at. Some of it is no doubt going to help us identify other HYDRA members, both dead and alive, but there’s no way of knowing until we go through all of it.”

Yevgeny’s eyes wander over the endless stacks of papers, trying to come to terms with it. With Natasha and Clint both gone, his options for communications are limited, and he’s forced to dig out the notebook Clint gave him, scribbling down his question before presenting it to Bruce.

 _Is this all about us?_ The note reads.

Bruce lets out a forced little laugh, shaking his head.

“No, only a fraction of it. Most of this material is dry reports, budgets, recruitment... only a small portion of it deals with you or Barnes. It’s over there,” Bruce says, pointing towards a heavy stack of three binders sitting by themselves on a counter.

Yevgeny’s across the room and reaching for them when Tony calls out.

“Don’t,” he says simply, and Yevgeny glances over his shoulder to find that Tony is staring at him.

He doesn’t say anything, but his look of confusion is obviously enough.

“Don’t. Don’t read it. Don’t even touch it. You don’t want to do it. Every single piece of information you could imagine about your life has been neatly written down and compressed to its most basic form, and the first thing I did was read it. And you know what? I regret it. I regret reading it. There’s nothing you can gain by reading it, only things you can lose. If we hand it over--and we should--I’m moving to have it sealed permanently, so that only a brief overview will be accessible to people who are qualified. No one needs to know what’s in that file. Not even you.”

Tony’s gaze is alarming in its intensity, and Yevgeny feels his skin crawl, staring back and trying to make himself seem half as imposing as Tony is right then.

He does a poor job of it.

“Don’t,” Tony repeats again, gesturing for a chair. “You don’t want to know. I’ve read it. Natasha’s read parts of it. And that’s it.”

“He won’t even let me read it,” Bruce adds. “This entire day has been Tony randomly declaring files off limits and adding them to the pile.”

Tony scowls at him.

“There’s nothing _random_  about it. I’m simply of the opinion that if reading a file is going to make someone need a minimum of five years of therapy, it’s better kept separate.”

Bruce only shrugs, and Yevgeny turns when the door opens behind him to see Natasha popping her head in.

“Yevgeny? It’s your turn,” she says, and Yevgeny notes that she doesn’t mention Bucky at all. He pauses, glancing back to Bruce and Tony--his head already back down to the binder in front of him--and then goes after her.

She doesn’t talk as they walk through the hallways, waiting until she’s found them an empty room--rather boring, with a table, a chairs, and an empty whiteboard--to sit down in before she does.

“Did Tony talk to you about the binders? He said he wanted to,” Natasha says, and Yevgeny’s quick to nod.

Natasha settles into her chair and lets out a sigh. It’s only than that it occurs to Yevgeny just how _exhausted_ she looks, the bags under her eyes the most telling sign.

He feels bad for her, but he doesn’t know how to make it any better.

“I haven’t read it all. I read part of it. I’ll only read it if you give permission, because the stuff in there...” She trails off for a moment, then sits up a bit more straight.

“I already talked to Barnes. I’m going to go through his stuff and try and figure out our options from it. I’ll do the same for you, if you want, or Tony can. You haven’t been here, but he’s been a bit... protective of you, since he read it.”

Yevgeny can’t _quite_  imagine it, but it’s hard to tell. He doesn’t know Tony all that well, and considering how he feels about Bucky, it’s hard to figure out how it all relates.

He doesn’t really need to think about it though. He’s fine with Natasha knowing, would answer her questions if she asked, and he nods carefully.

 _You can read it_ , he mouths, and then his face twists slightly as he thinks, fingers twining together in his lap.

 _Should I read it?_ He adds, the question of it weighing on his mind.

Natasha doesn’t answer right away, obviously considering either what she wants to answer, or perhaps _how_ she wants to answer.

“No,” she finally says, a note of finality in her voice. “If you want, I’ll tell you what’s in it--answer your questions--but reading that sort of report, the sort of thing that makes you sound like an _object_  rather than a person... it can’t be good for your mental health.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way, but he nods just the same.

“Let's go downstairs, I left Steve and Barnes in the kitchen. I hope Steve’s been acting nicer to you...?” She says, watching him closely as if expecting him to lie.

He nods his confirmation, deciding that Steve _has_  been nicer to him, even if it hasn’t even been a full day.

“Well, that’s good. Because if he’s ever _not_ , he’s going to have hell to pay,” Natasha mutters under her breath, ushering him out of the room.


	61. Chapter 61

It takes three days for Bruce and Tony to get through the documents. Three days seems to take forever, and the longer it lasts the more Yevgeny becomes convinced that neither of them is sleeping. Tony certainly isn’t, the bags under his eyes becoming more and more prominent the longer it goes on.

Clint arrives back two days after they do, looking a good deal more tanned and far more energetic.

“Missed me?” He says almost immediately, ruffling Yevgeny’s hair in a manner that only serves to irritated Yevgeny. He swats Clint’s hand away despite the fact that he _is_  actually happy to see the man, pausing when he sees the look on Clint’s face.

Clint is, for lack of a better word, _scrutinizing_  him.

There isn’t any real force to it, but Yevgeny stiffens just the same when Clint lightly takes his wrist, pulling his arm straight and turning it over to inspect.

“You had a scar on the back of your wrist, and now you don’t,” Clint says simply, glancing up to watch Yevgeny’s face as he says it.

Yevgeny squirms, irritated with himself for not realizing how fast Clint would figure it out.

“Did you think I wasn’t going to notice, with how much I look at your hands? Fess up,” Clint adds.

 _Bruce tried to fix my serum_ ,Yevgeny mouths. _To help me heal better_.

Clint looks neither surprised nor impressed, his eyebrow still raised.

“And if I ask Nat about this, is she going to know about it?”

Yevgeny squirms, which answers Clint’s question without him even having to open his mouth. Clint lets out a loud sigh, reaching up to scratch at the back of his head, and then shrugs.

“I’m going to go talk to Bruce. _You_  get to talk to Nat. I’m not going to be angry you let Bruce do whatever--give you a shot or something--but I am going to be irritated you didn’t at least tell Nat about it.”

Yevgeny can’t really argue his point, even if he doesn’t like the idea of having to actually confess to Nat. If anything, he’s slightly mystified that Clint’s being so _nice_  about it.

He supposes it’s simply the situation, because there’s no question that Clint’s aware of it.

He doesn’t protest when Clint ushers him off to go find Nat, but he does feel oddly alarmed when Natasha brushes him off.

“I already knew, Yevgeny. And I’ve already talked to Bruce about it,” she says, glancing at him only briefly. She’s in the middle of a thick binder of her own, and Yevgeny isn’t sure if it’s simply _coincidentally_ like the ones Tony’s digging through, or if she’s actually grabbed one for herself.

Everything about the situation is awkward, albeit in an unfamiliar way, and he goes to find Bucky instead.

They play cards for lack of something better to do, and Yevgeny’s almost relieved to find that Steve spends the next few days with them, rather than going off with everyone else. He gets the sense--because Steve certainly doesn’t _say_  it--that Steve’s been exiled from whatever else is happening.

He sees very little of anyone else, even if Clint and Nat do make a point of checking in. The most he sees of Bruce is when the man comes to give him a second shot, and the most he sees of Tony is when he runs into him in the kitchen, unloading an armful of empty energy drink cans into the recycling bin.

The longer things go, the tenser he gets.

The moment both Natasha _and_  Clint show up in the living room, Yevgeny knows that whatever he’s been waiting for is about to happen.

He’s obviously not the only one, because even though he can’t see Bucky’s face, he can tell that every muscle in the man’s back have gone tense all at once.

“Can we get you three up to the briefing room?” Natasha asks, her voice curt and businesslike. It does nothing to ease Yevgeny’s mood, not even when Natasha offers him an obviously forced smile.

It’s the first time Steve and Tony have been in the same room together, but Tony simply ignores both Steve and Bucky, watching Yevgeny instead.

“We’re going to decide what we’re doing. That said, we’re going to treat this like a wedding--if anyone person voices an objection, then we’re handing the documents over. If we _don’t_  hand them over, then we’re all technically committing a crime, so the ability to _opt out_  is important,” Tony explains once they’ve all settled in.

“Don’t start in the middle, Tony,” Bruce says. “Lay out the options and _then_ point out stuff like that.”

Tony rolls his eyes, but he follows Bruce’s instructions.

“We have all the evidence we’re ever going to find, realistically speaking. So now we have to decide if we want to hand that stuff over when we hand over the rest. If we don’t, both of them remain here and have no legal standing to speak of. It limits their mobility and options, but allows things to remain as they are.”

Yevgeny _likes_  the idea of things staying as they are. He has no complaints, but it’s obvious that it’s only one of the options.

“The other option is that we hand stuff over, and let the government do with it what they will. It means handing over everything--we don’t get to be selective with this.”

Yevgeny doesn’t like that option at _all_.

“And then what, go to trial?” Steve says, brows furrowing together.

Tony snorts.

“No. If Barnes ever goes to trial, it’s already too late. There’s no arguing that he _did_  kill all those people, and if it goes all the way to trial everyone’s hands will be tied. Brainwashing as a defense might get him out of a death sentence, but it’s not going to get him out of several consecutive life sentences. Not when he’s the man who killed a president. The entire thing just makes the government look incompetent, and you know how they love that kind of stuff.”

Steve obviously does, but Yevgeny doesn’t. Most of what’s happening is going over his head, and he simply flicks his eyes around, watching people react.

More or less everyone seems nervous, but Steve worst of all. Steve looks more nervous than even Bucky himself, who seems oddly relaxed.

“Why are we even discussing, when it’s obvious that Barnes has already decided?” Natasha asks, giving Bucky a pointed look.

Bucky shifts in his seat, flexing the fingers of his metal hand, and then looks away, avoiding Natasha’s gaze.

“I’m not going to ask anyone to lie for me,” he says, a tone of finality in his voice.

“We figured as much,” Clint says. “It’s probably for the better either way.”

Steve looks hurt, but after a moment he tears his eyes away from Bucky, glancing around the room.

“So what now, we just hand over all that information to them? What about _privacy_?”

Tony shoots him an irritated look, and Yevgeny wonders if someone shouldn’t be intervening.

“You lose the right to privacy around the time you start shooting people, especially if one of those people is the president of the United States, Steve.”

“Alright, alright!” Clint calls out, interrupting the argument before it can get even worse. “You can argue with each other later, this is time sensitive.”

“So what are we doing, exactly?” Steve says, his tone harsh. “Just throwing them to the wolves?”

“No, Steve. We--and by we I mean _me_ \--” Tony starts, “are not throwing them to the wolves, but thank you for your moral support. I already have my legal team setting up something. We’re going to put them in together, we’re _not_  going to go anywhere near the military, and I’m going to pull a bunch of favors to get them to make the matter one of national security so that the entire thing can be sealed.”

Steve looks taken aback, although Yevgeny can’t quite bring himself to even _act_  surprised. The idea of Tony taking charge like he is doesn’t surprise him in the slightest. Really, the only bit of surprise is that he’s apparently offering--at least to a certain extent--the same support to Bucky.

“Thats... very kind of you, Tony,” Steve finally says, obviously struggling to come up with the right words for it.

“Obviously,” Tony says with a little grunt. “Even if hate Barnes--and I do, don’t get me wrong--that doesn’t make what happened to him right, and it doesn’t make what happened to Yevgeny right. So we’re going to handle this, and then I can go right back to hating Barnes in peace.”

Bucky looks like he can’t tell if he’s supposed to happy or not, and Clint lets out a little laugh.

“Very mature of you, Stark. Next time I get in trouble with the law, remind me to give you a call.”

“Alright, everyone already knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Barnes, Yevgeny, you’re with Nat tonight,” Tony says, his voice remaining even despite directly addressing Barnes.

Clint gives a little mock salute as he pushes himself out of his seat, and then Tony’s gone, out of the room in an instant before he has to deal with Barnes any more directly.


	62. Chapter 62

_Being with Nat_ actually means ‘trying on clothes’, something strange and unfamiliar to Yevgeny. His entire wardrobe was _uniform_  and little else, and even in his time on the streets it was a matter of taking what he could get.

Being fitted for a suit is something else entirely.

It’s too tight in all the wrong places, and Yevgeny finds himself squirming as Natasha pins the suit carefully for tailoring.

“The idea is to make you look professional. You aren’t a random urchin we’ve scraped out of the trash to show them, you’re an adult who has a future and potential that they shouldn’t want to waste. The same goes for Barnes--he’s not an angry homeless man, he’s a war hero who has fallen on hard times,” Natasha explains, pinching at the material as she pins it in place. The suit she’s picked out barely fits Yevgeny, but the one she picked for Bucky fits him more or less perfectly, as far as Yevgeny can tell.

“So you’re answering to your full names, and calling each other by first names, and we’re going to make sure that you and Steve have the same hairstyle so that the similarities are more obvious,” she adds, reaching up to run her fingers through Yevgeny’s hair. “Which means cutting it.”

Yevgeny isn’t really a _fan_ of Steve’s hair, but his own is long enough to get in his eyes, so he isn’t really averse to cutting it either.

“Does he even have a full name?” Bucky asks, glancing over to where Yevgeny’s standing.

“No,” Natasha says simply. “We’re putting him down as Yevgeny Rogers.”

The words _Yevgeny Rogers_  sound completely ridiculous to Yevgeny.

“To make it more obvious he’s a clone?” Bucky speculates, earning himself a nod.

“If we’re lucky, neither of you will have to say a word. If you _do_  have to say anything, it means we’ve already screwed up somewhere. But if you _do_  have you say anything, be respectful. Be polite. Act like your lives depend on it, because they do. That means everyone should be _mister_ or _miss_. It means you should use last names. Don’t call him Bucky, call him _Mister Barnes_.”

Yevgeny is having a hard time associated with Bucky--the man who didn’t even have a _name_  until less than two weeks before--with _Mister Barnes_.

Natasha finishes pinning the suit before getting him to change back into his own clothes, and then hands them over to Clint.

Clint seems a good deal more relaxed than Natasha does, but Yevgeny feels like he knows the man well enough to realize that it’s simply how he handles stress.

He takes them to meet the lawyers, and Yevgeny’s stomach does a flip.

Too many official looking men in suits, talking in even tones and largely ignoring his presence. When they actually do paying attention to him--talking to themselves about basic things like whether it would be more beneficial for him to look younger or older--Yevgeny spaces out.

It’s all a bit too similar.

He doesn’t last long before Clint carefully escorts him out, summoning up Tony who brings him back to the lab to sit.

“Bad plan,” Tony says to himself, flittering around the office like an oversized fly, moving paper without any obvious method or pattern. “I should have realized you’d do badly around lawyers,” he admits.

Yevgeny doesn’t argue, doesn’t point out that even he didn’t realize how bad it would be. Instead he sits in the office, accepting the glass of water Tony pushes into his hands and drinking deeply.

“Since Barnes has to suffer through the long version, I’ll just give you the short version to get you up to speed. We’re not going to try and deny any of the stuff you did. There’s no point, and the evidence is clear enough. We’re also _not_  claiming insanity. What we’re claiming is that HYDRA should be held responsible for everything that you and Barnes did, the same way that if I pointed a gun at someone and told them to rob a bank, they wouldn’t be responsible for robbing the bank, because they were forced to. The same _should_ hold true for you and Barnes.”

Tony pauses, giving him an appraising glance as if expecting questions, but Yevgeny really only has one.

 _What if it doesn’t?_ Yevgeny mouths, holding the empty glass in his lap.

Tony approaches, clearing the glass away before answering.

“Are you asking for a worst case scenario? Because there are a lot of bad ones. I’m not going to let it get to that, though. If it looks bad, I’ll pull out the secret weapon, and then they’ll back down.”

Yevgeny glances up, watching as Tony drops the glass on a shelf by the door, and then stares at him intently as the man turns around.

Just because he can only half read his lips doesn’t mean Tony can’t figure out exactly what Yevgeny wants to ask, and he lets out a little sigh.

“I earmarked an example. One page report by HYDRA, from when you were eight. People--adults, really--don’t like the idea of kids getting hurt. They _really_  don’t like the idea of kids getting hurt. And when kids _kill_  other kids, it puts things in very black or white terms. Presented with that, they have to either accept that you can’t be held responsible for _all_  of it, or they have to blame a child for something they were subjected to. It’s emotional manipulation, but when it comes to things like this, I play to win.”

Yevgeny isn’t quite _aware_  of his expression--his thoughts are elsewhere--but apparently it’s grim.

“I’m not going to unless I have to,” Tony insists.

Tony leaves him to rest as he goes back to his own work, and it’s almost an hour before Clint pops his head in.

“Everything alright?” He asks, grinning when Yevgeny nods at him. “Come on, we’re getting pizza and then tucking into bed early. You want to join us, Tony?”

Tony looks up at him, his brows furrowed in concentration, and then he shakes his head.

“I’ve got work to do, I’ll see everyone in the morning,” he says, giving both Clint and Yevgeny a nod before turning away.

Clint looks like he’s about to protest, then shrugs, waving for Yevgeny to follow.

He does, wishing for the thousandth time that he could just say what he was thinking.


	63. Chapter 63

Yevgeny wakes feeling sick to his stomach. He’s not unfamiliar with the idea of intense stress--realistically, he’s had worse--but this is the first time he’s had so much _notice_. With HYDRA, he found out he was in trouble immediately before facing up to the trouble, rather than sitting on several days notice.

Natasha visits him when he’s in the middle of getting dressed, carefully helping him do up his suit before grabbing a comb. His hair’s already cut--trimmed to the exact length of Steve’s own--and she carefully combs it into place so that it matches, leaning back to give him an appraising look.

“Mmm, sometimes I forget you _are_  his clone. No one’s going to forget like this, though.”

Yevgeny doesn’t know how he feels about the near constant reminders that yes, he _is_  Steve’s clone. At the very least he knows how he feels about being _Yevgeny Rogers_  for court proceedings.

At least he’s not alone in thinking it sounds ridiculous.

He’s ready to go when Natasha suddenly stops, looking him dead in the eyes for the first time since she arrived, and Yevgeny knows that whatever she’s going to say is going to be important. Even so, he isn’t sure wants to hear it.

“If things go badly, Yevgeny, all you need to do is let me know, and I’ll take you out of there, no questions asked.”

For a moment he thinks that she’s making a general offer--if he starts to dissociate, being surrounded by so many people in suits who will no doubt be arguing--but then he realizes that it’s not. Her offer is a legitimate one, and when she says that she’ll take him out of there, she means it in a much _grander_  sense.

If he wants to leave--to abandon everything--she’ll take him.

Yevgeny goes still as the weight of it sinks in, but he doesn’t ever doubt that she means it. Natasha wouldn’t be offering it at all if she hadn’t considered the consequences.

Yevgeny doesn’t take long to think about it, shaking his head after a moment. As much as it sounds appealing at first--running off with Natasha and not dealing with the legality of things at all--it closes too many doors for him. If he runs away, he isn’t sure if he’ll see Clint again, let alone anyone else.

 _I can do it_ , he insists, and Natasha gives him a brief smile before nodding at him, patting him on the shoulder.

“Let's go then.”

Bucky-- _James_ \--looks downright strange in the suit, his hair neatly combed. Tony’s the only one who looks immediately recognizable as he slides into the car, glancing between Steve and Yevgeny with a scrutinizing look.

“You match, which is good. We want that familiarity front and center to make our case,” he says, but it’s the only thing he says for the duration of the ride.

They ride in silence, and Yevgeny spared only a quick glance to Bucky, establishing that the Asset--the man--is doing the same thing Yevgeny himself is: Staring out the window as the world goes by.

There are, surprisingly to Yevgeny, no handcuffs to speak of. Even when they arrive and are ushered into a side room, no one bothers to formally _arrest_  them. The building is large, ornate, and packed to the gills with people, but they’re simply tucked in a corner and left to wait, just the two of them.

Even Steve goes off to make his case.

Bucky spends his time staring at his hands until Yevgeny scoots over on the bench, nudging his knee to get his attention.

 _No handcuffs?_ He mouths, vaguely confused. He doesn’t exactly have _experience_  with court or anything even sort of like it, but he’s pretty sure they’re supposed to be.

Bucky lets out a snort, balling his metal hand--hidden under a thick glove--into a fist.

“What’s the point? I could snap any cuffs they put on me, and they probably realize that. We’re here because we _want_  to be here, and if they brought in enough people to be able to properly restrain us, they risk the whole thing leaking.”

Yevgeny can’t really argue that. If anything, he’s not sure that they’d be _able_  to bring in enough people to restrain Bucky if they needed to.

He’s well aware of just how dangerous he can be.

“You’ll be fine,” Bucky says suddenly, giving Yevgeny a quick glance before looking away. “No matter what.”

He isn’t sure what the other man is thinking, but he’s sure it isn’t good, and he scowls at him, nudging his shoulder to get him to look back.

 _Don’t say stupid things like that,_ he mouths, irritated.

Bucky lets out a short snort that’s _almost_ a laugh, then turns away again.

He doesn’t respond, a fact that only serves to stress Yevgeny out that much more.


	64. Chapter 64

It seems to take forever before someone comes to get them, a stranger in a suit who ushers them into a courtroom. It isn’t like the courtrooms he’s seen on TV--there’s no jury, for one--and there’s a whole string of important looking men in suits staring at him when they finally step inside.

Yevgeny isn’t ready for any of it, and he wavers in the doorway, only moving inside when Bucky presses a hand against his back, scooting him inside.

He’s dimly aware of his body and the presence of Bucky’s hand on his back, but very little else. He sits when Bucky nudges his shoulder, but he’s already far, far away. He doesn’t hear the proceedings. Doesn’t hear the arguments. Doesn’t hear when Tony clears his throat, standing up to read out the single page he has prepared.

He misses the alarmed and horrified looks from the men who have spent the better part of two hours staring at him.

He doesn’t miss when Bucky clenches his hand into a fist, feeling the movement of his fingers despite the heavy suit.

“Is he alright?” One of the men asks, but it feels like someone is saying it from very, very far away.

“He’s dissociating,” comes a voice that he distantly recognizes as Tony's. “He does poorly when surrounded by strangers in suits.”

He doesn’t hear the rest. The only thing he’s really aware of on any level is the slow circle that Bucky’s hand is making on his back, trying to keep him grounded in an unhappy reality.

“Yevgeny?” Comes a voice, and he doesn’t respond right away. It’s not until the voice comes again--and he recognizes it as Natasha--that he blinks slowly, staring up at her with wide, confused eyes. Her hand is on his shoulder, he realizes, but he doesn’t remember it getting there.

He is in court, he tells himself. It’s important.

“You can tell him after,” someone says, and Natasha slips away, her hand retreating. 

People keep talking--at him and about him--but he doesn’t hear any of it. He doesn’t really hear anything at all until Bucky’s hand starts pressing at his back again, and then he’s up on his feet, moving mechanically out of the room. He can hear snippets of conversation--of words and pieces--but none of them have any context.

They go back to the room from before, and Bucky carefully guides him back to where they sat, nudging him until he sits down, still unfocused.

“Yev,” Bucky says quietly, and he stirs ever so slightly.

Bucky’s hand is on his face, tipping it up so that he’s looking directly at him.

“Yevgeny, I need you back here, alright?”

Yevgeny focuses ever so slightly, letting out a long, deep breath. He’s still there. It’s just him and Bucky and no one else, none of the men in suits, none of the people surrounding him. It’s just the two of them, and Bucky isn’t rushing him--he’s just taking his time, letting him come out of it ever so slowly.

Yevgeny feels so, so tired.

“Bucky?” He mumbles under his breath, the word nothing more than a wheeze. He feels horrible, and beyond that he feels alarmed. He’s missed it. Whatever’s happened, he’s missed it entirely, and all of a sudden he’s _terrified_.

“What happened?” He blurts, only there’s no sound--there’s never any sound--and he feels a stab of frustration at the realization.

“Tony talked to them. He presented the case. He read the file. They seemed... pretty horrified, which is good, I guess,” Bucky says, his voice strained.

 _And?_ He mouths.

Bucky lets out a little laugh, but there’s no real humor to it.

“And that’s it. They’re still discussing. Natasha requested you be released so you could sit outside, because it was cruel and unusual to have you sitting there like that.”

Yevgeny decides he’s going to have to do _something_ for Natasha, because a thank you isn’t going to be quite enough.

 _What now?_ He signals, forcing himself to take a deep breath. There’s still more. As much as he so desperately wished it was over, it isn’t. There’s still more.

“We wait,” Bucky says, a note of finality in his voice. “And we hope it was enough.”

The waiting seems to take hours. Yevgeny barely moves for the duration, fighting off the urge to simply get down and do push ups. The suit is too stiff, and the idea of someone walking in on him doing push ups while he’s trying to be _normal_  convinces him that it’s a bad idea.

He feels like they’ve been there for a lifetime when the door finally opens, and Natasha steps in, followed closely by Tony, Steve, and Clint. Bruce isn’t anywhere to be seen, and Yevgeny wonders if he’s back with the lawyers.

“Well, that’s that,” Tony says, and Yevgeny sits up even straighter. “Surprised they decided so quickly.”

“Tony, you made the Attorney General _cry_ ,” Natasha snaps, sounding irritated. “Did you expect them to deliberate after that?”

“Crying doesn’t mean agreeing with your points,” Tony points out, and Yevgeny feels like he’s going to scream if they don’t tell him what’s happening right then.

At the very least Clint seems to realize how agitated he is.

“They already deliberated and came to a decision,” Clint says. “Considering your past histories and extenuating circumstances, they aren’t going to pursue a prison sentence. The exact details of your personal histories--including the whole thing with JFK--are now sealed and confidential, known only to a few people. That said, there was significant concern that either of you might break the law and cause a national incident, so they wanted to confine you to a psychiatric facility until they could be _sure_  you were fully recovered and not going to re-offend.”

Yevgeny doesn't think that _recovered_  is the right word in his case, but his gut doesn’t really care. He feels sick. Bucky simply looks resigned, as if everything that happened was inevitable.

“But, a certain genius pointed out that no psychiatric facility in America was going to have the capacity to contain Barnes, making the entire thing a giant farce. So they agreed to confine you to the tower, and then to the brand new facility I’m already building, and have the best possible psychiatric care provided to you _there_.”

Yevgeny needs to take a moment to process it, to follow what he’s hearing.

 _We’re free?_ He mouths incredulously.

Tony lets out a snort that’s downright inappropriate, considering the situation.

“If you just said ‘we’re free?’, then the answer is no. When I say confined, I meant it. Ankle trackers, not leaving the tower, the whole deal. I’m riding my career on the fact that you and Barnes aren’t going to run off.”

It isn’t freedom--not in the slightest--but Yevgeny doesn’t mind. It’s not prison. It’s not being separated from the people who matter to him.

He doesn’t say anything at all until Clint suddenly steps forward, wrapping his arms around Yevgeny and pulling him up against him. His eyes water almost immediately, and then there’s another set of arms--Natasha's--and then it’s not just watering.

It isn’t freedom, but it’s good enough.


	65. Chapter 65

Tony is true to his word. When they get back to the tower, he immediately returns with ankle cuffs.

The fact that he has them handy makes Yevgeny wonder if the entire thing wasn’t his plan alone, but he doesn’t voice the thought. He’s thankful either way. An ankle cuff is nothing compared to the alternative, and it’s thin and small enough to be unobtrusive.

“Waterproof, shock proof, tamper proof--and it alerts us if you leave the building,” Tony says, sounding oddly proud.

Bucky looks mildly irritated by it, but he doesn’t voice any concerns.

The mood is somber as everyone changes into ordinary clothes, but when Bruce returns, Clint insists on changing that.

“We should be celebrating!” Clint insists.

Yevgeny wants to protest--because the entire mood feels like someone just died--but the more he thinks about it, the more sense that it makes.

Being confined to the tower is _nothing_.

Clint’s mood turns out to be infectious. He orders far too many pizzas for seven people to eat, and Steve ends up inviting Sam. Tony invites two of _his_  friends, introducing them as Rhodey and ‘the best thing that ever happened to me’, who insists on being called Pepper.

Thor arrives late, but bearing gifts. He wastes no time in presenting Yevgeny with a small silver amulet of a hammer, insisting that it will bring him good luck. Clint finds the entire thing hilarious, and insists that Yevgeny wear it everywhere.

Bucky gets a simple metal bracelet, which Thor wastes no time placing on his metal wrist.

Clint finds that even _more_  hilarious.

There’re no early nights. Everyone--even Tony, who looks more dead than alive at the moment--stays up long after dark, working there way through the pizza. Sam insists on a movie, and Tony produces--despite it still being in theaters--Jurassic World.

Yevgeny’s never seen the original movie, but he loves it anyway.

It’s long past three when people start to excuse themselves. Bruce is the first to go, but he insists that Tony go to sleep as well. Thor follows shortly after, and then Pepper, Rhodey, and Sam excuse themselves as well.

Natasha and Clint are among the last to go, and then it’s just him, Steve, and Bucky.

Yevgeny’s exhausted from the day’s events, but he refuses to go to bed before everyone else does. Instead, he curls against Bucky’s side, trying his best not to fall asleep.

He wakes with the dawn to find Bucky asleep beside him on the couch, a blanket wrapped loosely around their shoulders.

“Finally awake?” Bucky asks, cracking an eye open when Yevgeny stirs.

Yevgeny yawns, sitting up, and Bucky lets out a tiny, strained laugh.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, reaching up to ruffle Yevgeny’s newly trimmed hair. “Doesn’t really suit you,” he adds, going out of his way to mess it up. “Better.”

There’s a bubble of something unfamiliar in Yevgeny’s gut. He can stay, he realizes. No one is going to come and jerk him away. There’s no more looming _threat_  hanging over his head, no more _what if_. He knows where he’s going to be a day later, and a week later, and a month later.

He’s found his place.

Yevgeny freezes and then relaxes when Bucky wraps an arm around him, pulling him in a bit closer. 

“You did good,” Bucky says quietly. “You could have left, and no one would have blamed you, but you stayed.”

Yevgeny can’t help but feel that the entire idea of Bucky--the man who has literally dragged him through hell and back several times--thanking him is _absurd_.

He scowls up at him in return.

 _I didn’t do anything_ , he mouths.

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches, barely suppressing a smile.

“Yev, do you think I didn’t notice Natasha offering you a way out?” He says, and Yevgeny goes still. He’d assumed--incorrectly, obviously--that it had been purely between him and Natasha.

“You could have taken it. You walked into the courtroom and sat there despite how terrified you were, and you still didn’t take it,” Bucky says quietly. Yevgeny bristles at the mention of him being _terrified_ , but Bucky shushes him when he opens his mouth to protest.

“I mean it, Yev. You could have left at any moment, and you didn’t. And as much as Steve wants to insist that we were in it together, the fact is that I needed you a hell of a lot more than you needed me. You were a kid. I was an adult. And I was the one who did most of the actual dirty work.”

Yevgeny couldn’t disagree harder if he tried.

 _You’re a war hero_ , he insists. _You fought with Captain America. And you were brainwashed. You didn’t choose to do any of that._

Bucky looks pained, his entire body stiffening, and then he shakes his head.

“Just because I didn’t choose to do it, doesn’t mean I didn’t do it. I hurt a lot of people, and I left a lot of people behind. If Tony never does forgive me, that’s his right. I took things away from him that I shouldn’t have.”

Yevgeny lets out a sigh, sagging back down against Bucky’s side. He knows better than to argue, better than to repeat the same loop over and over, insisting that Bucky isn’t responsible. He knows better than anyone, after all. Bucky isn’t the Asset, and the Asset isn’t Bucky.

He can’t say the same for himself. He’s always been the same person, and there’s no running from the things he’s done.

Bucky pulls him tightly against his chest, letting out a tiny little sigh before finally releasing him.

“If you ever need anything--anything at all--you just need to ask,” he says quietly.

Yevgeny nods, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever claim that favor. The Asset was the one who would do anything for him without question, but Bucky is something else entirely.

He hopes he’ll stay that way for a long, long while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read along, left kudos, and left comments! I hope you all enjoyed!


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